Yohji Yamamoto. Spring 2023 - Paris Fashion Week

(Images:  Yohji Yamamoto 2022)

The 2020 pandemic did indeed break up Yohji Yamamoto's relentless Paris schedules, that have been mostly an unwavering occurrence for three decades of a runway presence from the aging master.  He is about to turn 79 and Yamamoto has returned to the Paris runways after shifting them from Tokyo, Japan, maybe seen as a tribute to his where his career began.  Paris was his transformation, Tokyo, Yamamoto's inception into this world is his reflection.  And the impact that Yamamoto has had on fashion has been undeniable, more so the avant-garde styles which fluctuate as a trend over the years, Yamamoto has steered the course with his design regime, that is distinctly of his own template.

Marking October the 3rd as Yamamoto's birthday and his return to Paris Fashion Weeks, the master designer has maintained his stylized, furlong looks that were seen throughout 2020 and 2021.  The worn-torn styles, merged with an elegancy in cultivating the art of aging.   Not an easy task to create, as the fashion industry is obsessed with youth, which is more aligned with the female models.  To which 2022 season have been a slew of new faces on the runway.  There is of course an appeal of the youth, is that it can hold possibility, change and focus into delivering something  new.   While at the same time it fails with lack of wisdom, hindsight and experience.  The young can be rash and impudent while believing they can have it all.  And it is  this rise and fall within its allurement of fame, that disposes a brutal and unforgiving sentiment.  Life is hard.

To which Yamamoto holds the stygian, the void as an obscure answer that one can meditate with, in a quest of finding the equilibrium of youth and the aging of life, thus Yamamoto's latest collection maintains the black as its stark canvas.  First seen in 1981, when he and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons debuted their collections of asymmetrical styles with their draped linen and fine wool, it was portrayed all in black with aspects of ghostly white.  To which the French press, in a derogatory manner, at the time called the Japanese designers Paris shows "Hiroshima Chic", yet Yamamoto and Kawakubo went on to redefine the modernist and avant-garde risqué and inscribe it into high fashion. 

Yamamoto's Spring 2023 collection holds his patois that is of Japanese and Western anagrams, with his notable vagueness and its charm of a lost-in-translation, in turn adding to the uniqueness of Yamamoto's extended career as a fashion designer.   

“When a humble flower in the crannied wall is understood, the whole universe and all things in it and out of it are understood.” 鈴木 大拙 貞太郎  (Suzuki Daisetsu Teitarō d1966)

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(A.Glass 2022)