Yohji Yamamoto. Spring 2025 - Paris Fashion Week

The aging master Yohji Yamamoto, maintains his consistency with over Four decades of showing at Paris Fashion Week.  A testament to his enduring skills as the most reconsible of Japanese Fashion designer's, showcasing his defined originality as a stalwart fixture, that Yamamoto himself undoubtedly holds as a connection to his beloved Paris.  And of the many reviews that I have done over the last Ten years of Yamamoto's shows, while witnessing the rise and subsequent fall of the Avant-garde fashion trend that occured in the early 2000s, which ended with a whimper in 2018.  Be it those raw stylizations, unpicked stitching, drapey linen, distressed leathers and all black gothic inclinations.  Yamamoto already had over Three decades of the said styles under his belt, and was one of the key originators of the look in the late 1970s.  So longevity, sans fate, was always going to be template for Yamamoto.  Overriding the many defunct imitators over the years, that were pale in comparison to the master of the Avant-garde.  

So, it can be said that Yamamoto's legacy now, and what will be later, will never be matched again.  And these occurrences of creativity which last the distance, are rare.  Particularly the over reliance of being famed by one's own artist endeavours.  As we all enter that peak of inundation of the last Two decades, of not just the fashion industry, but generally within our society.  Yamamoto to me, and I mean this with the utmost respect, represents that mastery is forever, the biology is not.  And as Eastern religious/philosophical teachings implores you to understand, all must in the end, face the funeral pyre.

And this should not be seen as a fatalistic cue, and in Yamamoto case, he has decided to stay the course till the end.  With no signs of handing the reins to a successor at this point in time, or reducing the amount of showings at the yearly Paris Fashion Weeks.   Age certainly has not slowed down the 81 year old Fashion designer, and even though I have seen recently a sombre, and in some showings a slower and conclusive element to his runway presentations.  Yamamoto appears to be carrying on. 

For his Spring 2025 collection, even though it seems less darker and gothic, although the aesthetics that defined Yamamoto over the years are clearly evident.  This collection feels more youthful, and his words "playful", saying that he wanted it to have a childlike creativeness.  But, the master is not a child, but rather admires the open mind of the child.  As it is a mind that begins, rather than an expert mind, that believes, mostly with arrogance, that it has reached the limit of knowledge.  Clearly, as we stand now, amidst a world in absolute turmoil, the human race, with all our intelligence, has not.

Yamamoto's latest array does indeed have a lot more recut, and redrawn aspects to the styles on show.  With a mixing and matching of prints, in their ad hoc asymmetrical cuts, reflecting a youthful rebellion, ala the late 1970s and the late Vivienne Westwood, who passed away in 2022, mirroring her 1977 "Seditionaries" collection which assisted in spawning the punk-esque tartan, and its offcut styles.  And I do feel that it is fine to romanticize youthful rebelliousness of yesteryear, as it has been truly missed for so many decades, particularly early punk rock. 

Yohji Yamamoto's Spring 2025 collection, offers that nostalgic snapshot.

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(A.Glass 2024)