The “party like it’s 1999”—and post it on TikTok—vibe that’s pulsing through the menswear collections this season is not to be found at Yohji Yamamoto. The designer seems to be taking a more circumspect view of the world, which, with the Olympics coming to his hometown of Tokyo and worries about new viral strains arising from the occasion, seems very wise indeed. Plus, Yamamoto’s been around long enough to understand the rhythm of cycles, and he tends to prefer to walk in the shadows.
His spring show opened with pieces that consider such plays of light—as well as his own considerable output. The show notes said that those ivory and black suits looked back to Yamamoto’s spring 1986 men’s collection. At first glance they may suggest assemblage pieces, an aesthetic that lends itself to upcycling, but that’s not what these were (bricolage came later in the lineup). Rather, the suits were more akin to minimalist artworks; and they had some of the geometric boxiness of a stretched canvas.
Here again, Yamamoto followed himself, not the current trend for skimp and skin reveal. Still, there’s a sensuality to the way the volumes of fabrics draped and moved around the fragile bodies of the models. Leaving something to the imagination is powerfully evocative. So are the lyrics of the music Yamamoto composed and played, which spoke of loneliness and trembling hands.
Hands and eyes created by the Japanese artist Yuuka Asakura were appliquéd on looks near the end of the show. Both organs are highly symbolic within Surrealist iconography, the latter as a symbol of creation, i.e. the making of art, and the former as a representation of the movement’s focus on exploring and visualizing the psyche, surfacing it through odd juxtapositions of images and words that force the viewer to stop and reconsider accepted knowledge.
Here, Surrealist suits were accessorized, if you will, with the punk hair and makeup that are a Yamamoto signature. This fierceness was somewhat of a front; according to the show notes, the protective aspect of the trench was something the designer wanted to focus on this season. Yet even the version with fang-like hardware was made of fabric that wafted around the body, robe-like; another, with a flower on one arm, incorporated elements of the kimono.
It wouldn’t be a Yamamoto show without references to the history of fashion. There were flashes of 1980s New Romanticism, and broader strokes of 19th century tailoring and workwear. “Mechanics’ tools jewelry express[es] a theme that is dear to him, the worker’s uniform, ‘the blue-collar people,’ ” read the show notes. Hmmm. With artfully dirtied faces, the models resembled story-book versions of Dickens characters rather than proletarians. The designer’s aim was apparently to “represent and to be close to all the human beings, mixing all social categories.”
There’s no doubting Yamamoto’s desire for connection; over the past year his focus seems to have become increasingly outward looking and engaged with current events. In fact, he commissioned Asakura, of the eye motifs, to create a newspaper print for the show. Unlike those created by Elsa Schiaparelli in the 1930s and John Galliano for Christian Dior circa 2000, these were not self referential; the one used here, culled from actual publications, was a record of current events, meant to stand as a “statement about today’s world.”
The headlining pieces in this collection were the two finale looks, in which the newspaper print (and models) were splashed with paint, like a super-sophisticated drop cloth. Yamamoto’s message appeared to be to carry on in despite—or because—of the current circus-like state of the world; that it’s self invention and creativity that will take us from the darkness to the light.
