BEAUTY: Clothing--Yohji Yamamoto

I can't resist a Yohji Yamamoto collection. For SS '22 at Paris Fashion Week, Yamamoto referenced his previous Spring Summer 1986 men's collection...yes, he is legendary and has been designing for quite a while now. The highly regarded and highly decorated designer is one of those elevated, iconic artists who are singular. While I love when a designer takes inspiration, or inspirationS from some wild, fascinating, interesting source, Yamamoto exists in a realm of his own mythology, much like Rick Owens. Yamamoto has his own vernacular and his own internal logic that, when it comes down to it, simply does not need or want inspiration or a theme. His creations--East and West elements combined into a future/retro (sometimes ecclesiastical) sensibility, layered and slouchy Bohemian chic garments, flowing asymmetrical cuts, all awash with an insouciant, rippling sense of Romanticism worthy of any French Symbolist poet--are timeless, since they are not necessarily tethered to anything outside of their orbit.

Here he uses newsprint--a sort of Dadist cut-up ready made art material--along with images of hands and eyes, Surrealist staples that symbolize creation, i.e. the making of art, and a representation of the movement’s focus on exploring and visualizing the psyche. Perhaps the intention here was to escape the present reality and into the past, away from the uncertainty of the direction of the planet and humankind. Or perhaps he simply likes that period, with its punk hair and Goth make-up...

https://www.yohjiyamamoto.co.jp/en/