Y's. Resort 2020 - New York

(Images from the designer and the public domain. Credited to the photographer/company where applicable: Y's)

Yohji Yamamoto has reinvigorated Y's into streamlined set piece, holding the brand's first runway show in 5 years at Tokyo Fashion Week, Yamamoto has cultivated the artisan stylization of the original brand he devised in 1972.  Pulling the brakes on rapid production in reflection to his collaboration with Adidas (Y'3), which seasonally releases products on a month to month calender.  This is in tune with slow fashion ethic which is now holding fast as the main stay in global fashion at the moment. To which there are positives and negatives, as fashion design is essentially a slow process. Hurried only in light of the various Fashion Weeks every year to lure the buyers, it relies on the perspectives of demand.  To design pieces and have them styled and fitted takes time, while a fresh wave of post grads will enter the markets in 2020, the lessons are going to get tougher.  As the front and center negative for designing limited and exclusive ranges, is they'll have to increase prices substantially to cover overheads and materials and to make, what may seem an impossibly, a living off their skill set.  But one the main positives, in light of the hardship, the truly dedicated will remain.

For Y's Resort 2020 collection, the bar has been lifted with the most crafted styles to date.  Hand dyeing as a slow fashion ethos also originates from over a decade of Avant garde styles via the many small brands that have come and gone throughout their artificer imprint.  The techniques of dyes and texturing fabrics by hand defines the trueness and care, in my opinion, of a fashion designer.  Yamamoto and his team have created under the ambiguity of two labels as one brand, which is “Black” and “Pink”, this could be a Japanese dichotomy of fusion of West and East semantics – which in most cases, in a unique way, does get lost in translation.  Thus scoring the obscurity that is delivered by the labeling, for Y's black doesn't necessary mean a black and pink as a color term doesn't relay a floral pattern work for their latest collection. Although as a side note, the absorption of black against the color pink work exceptionally well together. But, Yamamoto maintains his very negative space (Ma 間) originated designs.

Drapped linen, cut with precision, quite possible some of the best yarn I have ever seen.  Crisp and beautifully portrayed, The “Black” Label dyed jade green, with moon stencils, is an absolutely stunning print. Oversize shorts, slouch tank tops, fine and delicate cottons.  One piece dresses, divinely crafted Yuki silk dresses and prints, reworked denim, in bleached ensembles.  These are sophisticated street looks that, even though impressed with a feminine charm, there is Y's sultry and alluring temperate to which Yamamoto specifically wanted to experiment with masculine styles for women.