Yohji Yamamoto's Mature New Incarnation
Written by: Godfrey Deeny
Photos by Gruber-FWD
PARIS, Jan 26, 2002/ FWD/ --- On a faux golf green runway at his Paris headquarters, Yohji
Yamamoto took flight with a cool, even austere collection where he edged forward the vocabulary
of fashion.
While Yohji's jackets and shirt collars sprouted embroidered wings, the designer kept his feet
fantastically on the ground with another score of great sneakers, the latest batch from his highly
successful partnership with Adidas.
This season, the designer tested the limits of Adidas' famed technicians -- some sneakers had
pinstripes, some had 3-D inflated stripes, some were boot-like in U.S. Army leather, and others
were made of hand-painted aged denim.
In a week where Yves Saint Laurent's brilliant creation of a whole fashion vocabulary is being
recalled with his departure, it's only fair to say that in Yamamoto we have a designer also
capable of extending the language of fashion.
To cite just one example, Yamamoto had a new collar, large with a displaced button and upturned,
Edwardian-style.
Also genuinely new were his three black knitted cardigans joined in the center with superfine wool.
The somber collection showed that Yamamoto's work is reaching a mature stage.
He's just become the latest designer to develop a second generation in fashion - his daughter
Limi has recently created a Y's Bis Limi collection, shown on appointment in Tokyo.
Much of the collection was comprised of the designer's signature cool, broadly cut suits - this
season's were padded jackets with cat-skin lapels over mega-wide pants.
Others cried out to be worn to an awards show - like the distressed denim suits with hand-painted
flowers.
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