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Yohji Yamamoto: Poetic Fashion Moment
Written by: Godfrey Deeny
Photos by Gruber-FWD
Click on image to see bigger photo or to send as a postcard.
Paris, Oct 6, 2001/ FWD/ --- Yohji Yamamoto combined the sublime with the sellable in a
poetic fashion moment in Paris last night.
Yamamoto was at his most lyrical, blending east and west in a collection full of clever clothes.
Security was strict at the show, staged in a huge warehouse underneath Berry Stadium.
Outside
fashion groupies pleading for spare invitations and fans attending an R. Kelly concert mingled
confusedly.
Some even offered several hundred francs for one of Yohji’s black cardboard invitations
bearing a text from the Hannya Sutra, a mystic Buddhist book of wisdom that urges people to
strive for emptiness and nothingness.
The key moment in the show was when Yamamoto twice sent out five young Japanese women in outfits
that intermingled ballet and deconstruction with traditional Japanese forms, making them seem
as if they came from some nationless future.
Another group of six mixed Adidas stripes with fabric covered in letters in Kanji, which uses
Chinese characters in Japanese text.
Yamamoto’s collaboration with Adidas, which began last season, produced a fresh selection of
sneakers, brilliant must-haves that will be majorly copied.
His first great idea was to put the
triple stripes over flat sneakers in cool Asian fabrics.
The stripes ran under the sole of some
sneakers, and later showed up on boxing boots with leather "flames" and bowling shoes.
Yamamoto also has a special gift of taking a banal garment and giving it new life, like his bomber
jackets suddenly made new by extending the waistband and collar and puckering the sleeve.
His models, as ever, had an exotic allure. This season their makeup came in big blotches, their
hair tied into taught fabric almost like a root.
However, though the show was a display of excellence, it was a little melancholic, just like
the spare, unaccompanied acoustic guitar that monopolized its soundtrack.
Though Yohji has never been a household name, few designers are as influential as Yamamoto,
whose collections frequently attract fellow designers. Last night Donna Karan appeared, and sat
front row scribbling incessantly through the show.
Yohji Yamamoto Fashion
Yohji Yamamoto Fashion
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