Yohji Yamamoto. Spring 2020 RTW - Paris Fashion Week.

(Images from the designer and the public domain. Credited to the 

photographer/company where applicable: Gorunway.com)

Yohji Yamamoto, for Spring 2020, presents his  latest collection with the blunt and subtle Sumi brush strokes that the famed designer is known for, as he mixes in the latest trend of undergarments and lingerie seen as recut styles to form part of the overall ensembles, that has gained predominance for 2020 Fashion weeks. Yet, Yamamoto he has also included the notable layering and draped styles which is the renown benchmark of his signature label.  Over his expanded career from the beginning of  his unique style of reworking the couture of fine tailoring, to which he has added and removed aspects of traditional looks.  Yamamoto has been able to strengthen the resolve of his creations, in turn it has earned him the masterfulness that he has become, yet, guided by his truly unique Japanese way – there is a lingering ambiguity.  

The abstraction and surreal, within fashion, should also hold degrees of  functionality.   A purpose, otherwise it becomes more of a spectacle.  Which is fine, yet, Yamamoto despite his influences that are drawn from the surreality of art, has not lost focus of delivering the real.  The tangible. With the variants of social concerns in the world, their dynamics are not always clear, they will at times appear as black and white in its rhetoric, yet in its negations, no matter how subtle can be the most obvious.  Suffering is universal and individual in its reflection.  Yamamoto has played on theses contradictions of the human mind, noting at his press meeting prior to the show “...to be misunderstood, is understanding ...” such is the Zen perspectives, that not all should be concerned in one way, without knowing the other.  Both are equal.  These old teachings of paradoxes are important, in understanding human nature.  That we are both saints and sinners.  All are the same in the clear heart. 

Yamamoto's Spring 2020 collection has a similarity in its feel to his 2018 Ready-to-Wear styles, the lifting of hem lines, a deconstruction and asymmetrical cuts of fabrics and fits, revealing bare skin.  To which he indicated, with an underlying sentiment for the 2018 collection, that there was a desire to study sex or at least being inspired by the sensuality of the feminine.  Which has always been one of Yamamoto's greatest motivation and challenge, with his clothing designs over the years.  

For his latest collection, the requisite continues, as he sets a more flowing style, less obvious, yet resonating cues of inclination, the accentuation of curves and form, dropped v-neck tops.  Slice cuts in fabric, as the model moves, exposing a glimpse of skin, tulle fabrics, sheer and revealing.  Yet, in some of the more colorful arrays, he has the models fully absorbed by the layered dress. There is a fusion of elements via Yamamoto's temperament with his latest offering, but it also maintains a focus; of the desirability of form and how it focuses the attention.