A painter in a creator’s soul, a gentleman globetrotter who has mastered zen and the precision of good taste – does it exist or has it ever existed? This, with his characteristic subtle discretion, is Yohji Yamamoto
“I don’t like to show the body in an ostentatious manner, I’d rather dream.” At first glance, this sentence could be seen to summarise the artist that is Yohji Yamamoto, but only those who have never seen or worn one of his creations would think that. The martial arts master in him always demonstrates a great restraint, and the painter dreams. He dreams, laughs, places his hope in man, but creates for woman. He protects her from surrounding greed like the flowers tacked onto the fabric of his latest collection’s designs. Some flowers also grow, protected from the shade of a bamboo forest. Needless to say, his deconstructed clothes warm the spirit’s flame. Not a low desire of ephemeral possession, but a soft and slow desire to remove the layers, to discover the passenger, to lean in and look closely, to notice the hidden treasure on the lapel, like a precious secret left close to the heart. He loves women and clothing in the same way someone feels about the love of their life.
“Physically, a woman’s body is like a desert whose dunes, swept by the wind, permanently evolve. I try to create on this movement. It’s a charming job.” Is the man from the Land of the Rising Sun full of containment? Yes – but not only that.
Yes, he rightly won the Soen Award, just like Issey Miyake and Kenzo Takada before him. But after studying law in Kalo. He grew up surrounded by the sound of a sewing machine and an iron, both deftly handled, I imagine, by his mother. It’s clearly a painful memory, as he doesn’t like this noise. But he loved his mother without limit or stitch. Living in post-Enola Gay Japan, he understands impermanence more than anyone, the form of imperfection that resides in all of us, as in our surroundings, what is lacking in every object: a soul!
In Japanese it is called Wabi-sabi. Softly with his fingertips, with a soothing smile in the corner of his mouth, he disseminates it in Europe and worldwide, letting us believe that we are discovering it as we would a teahouse in the middle of a lush garden.
He offers us truth to wear, the kind that contrasts with rigour, the grey that we carry from our home to our working place. Too stereotyped to reveal ourselves or to be honest. To wear Yohji doesn’t mean to be Yohji – it is reclaiming oneself, without becoming our colleague’s neighbour.
Behind me I hear a man and his girlfriend whispering that it lacks colour. Let’s consider the orange stole, the coat that went from black to purple to print in his last collection… Yohji Yamamoto improves on perfection each year.
I take this opportunity to melt into a lord’s shade, who, in one short sentence, explains, “Black is not a colour, it is a shadow, the shadow of the woman I still pursue.” I enjoy being that woman, respected and loved, caught up in the middle of incessant motion, where I sometimes feel like I’m dissolving, losing myself. But he understands it: “Who are we? We live in cities, cities live in us, time passes. We move from town to town, from one country to another. We switch languages, change habits, opinions, clothes. We change everything. Everything changes fast.” That’s why a design created by Yohji Yamamoto is timeless. This figure would not blossom in the reflection of a transient trend. To exist, to reveal not only what a fashion designer wants of us, but what the wearer expects from the couturier. A unique form of individuality that avoids disappearing in a labyrinth of intention that relates to oneself.
Yohji Yamamoto spreads his palette of shadows and hope that we hide beneath our jackets; we can feel the wind and life itself between our skin and clothing. A maverick life where hope and respect meet. Thank you, Mister Yamamoto.
Credit:
Photography by Elise Toide
Styling by Théophile Hermand
Hair and make-up by Caroline Fenouil
Model: Charlotte at Supreme Paris
All clothes: Yohji Yamamoto