Whenever Yohji Yamamoto’s shows are accompanied by a guitar playing aimless melodies—a little country, a little blues—you can be sure that’s the designer himself. This time, he added simple, sincere lyrics along the lines of, “I like your cheeks; I like the way you smile; I like your voice; I like the way you smile.” Note no mention of clothes, as Yamamoto evidently knows better than to confuse heart and soul with an asymmetric black shirtdress. But among the reasons why this collection consisted primarily of black garments draped, folded, tucked and twisted with a high degree of idiosyncrasy was because, “I wanted to find new emotions, new silhouettes,” he explained post-show. Regarding the former, do new even emotions even exist? The latter, however, came to life with horizontal book-page pleats, dimensional ruching, and contoured wrapping. And to hear Yamamoto tell it, the two pursuits were inseparable. He used “prohibitive” before switching to “unusual” to describe the techniques. With all that work now behind him, he said, “It was very difficult; but it was big fun.”
Such enthusiasm permeated the clothes, albeit in an unreadable way. With Alicia Keys in the audience—apparently, she had been eager to attend—one was inclined to consider which looks she might single out. The zip blouson and tucked skirt could be an obvious option, or else the perfecto-style jacket with a ruffle plastron and carrot pants. Both looks had elements of the familiar compared to others which suggested impulsive swaddled gestures. But a final grouping of unstructured, irregular shirt- and coatdresses re-established Yamamoto as a fine minimalist. And whoever developed the dressy matte black Adidas boots deserves a shout-out for such a sleek upgrade.
As for the frequent critique that once you’ve seen a handful of the designer’s all-black looks, you’ve seen them all, that simply is not true—and not just because of the hints of dyed gray and secret language of threads. Paint applied randomly to pleats and leggings cast the pieces with artistic expression, even though Yamamoto qualified that it was principally a reaction to the predictable outcome of prints. “I’m not going to use prints from someone else anymore,” he declared. “I can¹t stop painting.” Nor should he, and that goes for the singing and designing, too.
