In the midst of references that make up current pop-culture, we decided to take a closer look at the icons still truly shaping fashion, music, and culture today – and what exactly is making them so significant. It is time to Know Your Icons.
Rarely any other designer has revolutionised our perception of beauty as much as avantgarde couturier Yohji Yamamoto. Introducing a wholly new way of dressing women by going against the grain with his anti-fashion approach, he has quickly developed a large fashion following and is to this day one of the biggest and most influential names in the industry, having earned an incredible reputation for high quality and skilled craftsmanship – here’s exactly how.
He has turned around the common perception of beauty
Japanese couturier Yohji Yamamoto’s designs are often referred to as fashion tailoring with an architectural approach. Taking his inspiration from menswear, his womenswear collections consist of big, oversized silhouettes, marked by almost solely being black, draping and geometrical shapes. When he first showed his collections outside of Japan, in 1981 at Paris Fashion Week, the audience’s reaction was mixed. Being used to the super-model aesthetics of the Eighties that celebrated figure-enhancing silhouttes and ultra-feminity, the minimalistic and body-covering shapes were perceived as “Hiroshima Chic”, not quite satisfying the audience’s want for classical womenswear. However, Yamamoto’s goal was exactly this – he was refusing to make clothes for the “doll-like women that men so adore”, which he had extensively observed on the streets of the Shinjuku while working in his mother’s dressmaking business. His kind of woman did not fit the traditional ‘ideal’, and thus paved the way for the anti-fashion look that found its peak in the Nineties.
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He masters the art of collaboration
Since Yamamoto’s designs entail such a refinement of tailoring and high quality, the prices are at the upper end of high end – even for a high-end designer. So by starting to collaborate with adidas in 2003, the new founded label Y3 brought together the Japanese’s minimalist aesthetics with the sportswear aspect of the German sneaker-expert and introduced Yamamoto to a broader audience. Next to this, Yamamoto also put his spin on collections with Repetto, Dr. Martens or Mandarina Duck. He also designed costumes for the Heiner Mueller and Daniel Barenboim production of Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan & Isolde and third kits for the football club Real Madrid. Moreover, he proved his multifaceted nature with a costume design collection for Japanese director Takeshi Kitano’s movie Dolls.
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He uses fashion as a political tool
The minimalist, who prefers to be labeled ‘dressmaker’ instead of designer, doesn’t just make political statements with his anti-fashion designs – in 2008, he founded the Yohji Yamamoto Fund for Peace. Losing his father during the Second World War when he was an infant has long haunted Yamamoto and turned him into an advocate for peace. By establishing a fund that sponsors a selected Chinese fashion designer throughout a 2-year-education at an European or Japanese fashion school, Yamamoto wants to contribute to an improved relationship between his home country and China – and therefore revolutionising not only our perceptions of beauty, but also the way how fashion can become an attempt for a rapprochement between two countries.
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A crisis cannot tear him down
2009 was the year of the financial crisis – and not even the multi-billion fashion industry was able to survive this crash unharmed. Like many other big names, Yohji Yamamoto had to file for bankruptcy, his debt being totaled to 67 million dollars – leading to the end of the 00’s being a tough time for the designer, even though his label was saved by Japan’s corporate rehabilitation law. However, now, almost ten years later, he reflects that it was partly his own fault. Yamamoto admitted to having become a little bit lazy and not catching up with the market at all, not caring about how it changed and how a new way of advertising needed to be adapted to make continous profit. But for him, the time also lifted a heavy burden from his shoulders – by having to give up ownership of his brand, he freed himself from the worry of family battles over inheritance involving his money and stocks. In a letter to Wim Wenders, Yamamoto even referenced this cut as a turning point and “the beginning of his last chapter”.
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The Yohji Yamamoto era is far from being over
But this “last chapter”, as he called it, will hopefully be a long one. The designer definitely doesn’t plan on going in retirement too soon – as he stated in an interview with WWD, he cannot imagine living a quiet life in the countryside, finding fishing and playing with dogs rather boring activities. Having stunned us with an awesome AW18 collection that payed tribute to Picasso’s cubism and the works of designer Azzedine Alaïa and suprised us with a step away from his black palette towards a more colourful approach in his Spring/Summer 2018 shows at Paris Fashion Week, we can be sure to keep on hearing a lot more from the Japanese avantgarde master.
Header Image: Film still from Dressmaker (2016)
