A Yohji Yamamoto collection is always something to see...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 sartorial vernacular and his own internal logic. His creations--Asian and Western 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.
So his Fall Winter '25-'26 collection at Paris Fashion Week was a bit surprising. Instead of French Symbolist poets or his sometimes-rough-and-tumble bruisers he send down the runway, he riffed on the idea of the ubiquitous puffer jacket. But of course, and thankfully so, through a Yohji Yamamoto lens. A dark, city-grime color palette also included olive drab, as though from a military camp. And not only were coats puffed but pants as well. This bulked up his normally flowing, swashbuckling silhouette. Present and welcome were the habitual Yamamoto prints and non-sequitur phrases. That along with a great embellishment of ball chains snapped randomly onto garments gave the affair an edge. So somehow, his poets and bruisers managed to rise to the surface. And then, out of nowhere, puffers turned to pristine optic white, like snow...unexpected from Yamamoto, who considers black to be a vibrant hue.
I just love the business of models swapping coats throughout the show, seen below. It offers a lovely, human-centered, intimate moment. And as always, I give thanks to Yamamoto for presenting not just young but mature models, and now showing body diversity as well. Good on you, Yohji-san!
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