Classic Yohji Yamamoto: His spring show was a rendition of poetic black draped asymmetry, fluid and swirling cuts, artful knots and bunches, plus deconstructed tailoring. A dash of red here, indigo denim there, and a few all-white palette cleansers for good measure. There was beauty and there was familiarity. And with 40 looks shown over the course of 30-plus minutes, there was also a lesson in patience as a virtue.
Yamamoto explained backstage that he wanted the clothes to feel young. “Recently, young boys and young girls are wearing mixed, genderless, so I wanted to work with this gender movement. I played a little,” he said. Yes, there was a blur of mannish jackets and trenches that melted into soft folds and skirts, but that’s nothing new for Yamamoto. He’s been toeing the gender line forever. What was different was his use of round buttons — red, white and black — to allow for adjustable shapes, so the each customer can “play” and create a customized look. He further personalized and romanticized by stitching messages into the clothes and pasting stickers onto the models’ bare backs in looks that were modest and covered in the front and sliced open in the back. For example, one read “Love Yohji Sex.” Sensual but discreet, Yamamoto likes a little left to the imagination. “Basically, I don’t want girls to show too much their bodies,” he said. “So just the back.”