There was only one question to ask Yohji Yamamoto after his show: How do you explain such a multitude and mishmash of prints? "People kept telling me I do too much black," said the designer, characteristically minimalist in his response. It was the most maximalist collection Yamamoto has shown in some time, but it was not the layering that shocked; all those pant cuffs under pant cuffs, collars over collars, and zippered slashes are Yohji 101.
This time, those zippers were aided by coffin-shaped pulls. If you tried to process Yamamoto's elongated three-button blazers and cropped pants, you'd wind up quickly diverted by skulls, serpents, and blood-red camouflage. Indeed, the collision of wild dandy florals, tamer sketched patterns, and psychedelic illustrations that bordered on occult will prove divisive depending on whether you more closely identify with a Korean pop star (G-Dragon was sitting front-row) or an editor who remembers back when Yamamoto's ample shapes were radical enough. All those ropes looked uncomfortably akin to nooses.
But there is something especially equalizing—arguably even self-actualizing—about the way Yamamoto, now a septuagenarian, continues to clothe grizzled models (this time boasting blue streaks) in looks as eccentric as those worn by his rosy-cheeked babes. Yamamoto's face appeared half-decaying on the back of a leather jacket—a selfie of sorts. In a way, it made the collection seem like an elaborate vanitas in which the wealth of symbols overcompensated for the designer's recent spell of restraint (hey, it's all relative). Hence the follow-up question: Mr. Yamamoto, you yourself wear so much black. Will we see you in these prints? "You will," he replied. "Promise."
