Designer Yohji Yamamoto has churned out collectors&rsquo; items in his signature all-black style for half a century. Now, a new generation of fans is flocking to his archives.

<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion-week/yohji-yamamoto-spring-2019-mens" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Yohji Yamamoto</a>&nbsp;is a name that resonates in the fashion hall of fame like a legend, a secret passed down among initiates who understand his story, his ethics, and his craft. To wear Yohji is to be part of a select group of intellectuals and creatives. Over a career spanning more than 50 years&mdash;Yamamoto, now 81, rose to prominence in the 1980s, alongside his former girlfriend Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Gar&ccedil;ons&mdash;the designer has carved out a space for himself that defies trends and the ebb and flow of consumer tastes. He has transcended the boundaries of gender, function, and color, turning his use of black into a way of life.
In his hands, fashion is a poetic meditation on the passage of time. Each season, a direct reference to his work hits the runway; now, his archive has been rediscovered by Gen Z, putting Yamamoto&rsquo;s earlier work at the center of the fashion conversation once again, while his pioneering foray into sportswear with Adidas, Y-3, remains one of the longest-running fashion collaborations in history&mdash;the 2003 launch kickstarted a capsule frenzy that continues to this day. Fittingly, his career has been the subject of documentaries, such as Wim Wenders&rsquo;s 1989 film&nbsp;Notebook on Cities and Clothes, and a major retrospective at London&rsquo;s V&amp;A in 2011.
I meet him at his Paris headquarters on Rue Saint-Martin, dominated by a vast white gallery that hosted the Pour Homme F/W 2025 show a few days earlier, and where an army of staff now mills around waiting to receive international buyers, and key pieces from the collection hang from the ceiling. As I ascend to his private apartment, I am asked to address him as &ldquo;Yohji-san,&rdquo; a term of respect and affection in Japanese. When we meet, I bow. He rises from behind a wooden table where he sits with his grandson in a haze of cigarette smoke.

&ldquo;Do you mind?&rdquo; Yohji-san has been chain-smoking since he was a teenager. It is one of his great vices, or rather, small pleasures in life. That and gambling, apparently. At 81, and just a few inches taller than five feet, he is an imposing figure. He wears his signature uniform: a knee-length gabardine blazer, scarves, and thick wool trousers, all in black with hints of gray. &ldquo;When I sit on the toilet, silently waiting for an idea to come to me, it never comes,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;But when I&rsquo;m driving my car and I stop before the red light, there it is and I grab it.&rdquo;
Yamamoto is notoriously evasive about how he designs. He learned his craft in the workshop of his mother, a seamstress. There he absorbed not only sewing techniques and the secrets of cutting, draping, and fitting, but also discipline and determination. &ldquo;Life and society have a broad meaning, but digital information is very narrow. The mindset of young people is very different from mine.&rdquo;
As a teenager, he was imbued with purpose. He initially studied law, for conformity and a sense of security, but soon after graduating realized that he did not want to pursue it as a career. In the late 1960s, he managed to secure a place at Bunka Fashion College, one of Japan&rsquo;s most respected schools that had launched the career of his hero Kenzo Takada, and began experimenting with design concepts that challenged the fashion norms of the time.

Life and society have a broad meaning, but digital information is very narrow. The mindset of young people is very different from mine.

Western styles dominated the market, but he was drawn to something different: a philosophy rooted in Japanese aesthetics and minimalism.
The turning point came when he received a scholarship to study in Paris. Upon returning to Japan, he founded his own womenswear label,&nbsp;Y&rsquo;s, and opened a store in Shibuya. In 1981, he made his official debut in Paris, presenting a collection that shocked the public and the media, who disparagingly dubbed it &ldquo;Hiroshima chic.&rdquo; Models walked the runway in loose, asymmetrical black looks and reinterpretations of the kimono that went against the era&rsquo;s preference for body-conscious fashion in vibrant, eye-catching colors. Yamamoto was proposing a new type of womenswear, unconstrained by the male gaze.
So, he brushed, braided, and treated traditionally delicate fabrics like suede, linen, and silk to withstand the elements. &ldquo;I just wanted to protect, not show,&rdquo; he says of his uncompromising exploration of warmth, adding of the runway presentation: &ldquo;I was tired of having perfectly proportioned models wearing my clothes. This time I asked for artists, painters, singers, and many other attractive people to walk the runway.&rdquo;

They included Mahmood, dancer Hugo Marchand, photographer Mohamed Bourouissa, and visual artist Robert Montgomery, who swapped clothes with the models halfway through the show. Towards the end of the show, married contemporary artists Luc Tuymans and Carla Arocha walked away in a tender embrace.
When we talk about the double-digit decline in sales in the luxury sector and the current game of musical chairs that is taking place among the creative directors of the big houses in an attempt to combat the crisis, Yamamoto launches into a diatribe: &ldquo;The fashion crisis is getting stronger. The big fashion houses do almost all the same things. It&rsquo;s so boring, don&rsquo;t you think? I wonder where the system will end up. Maybe investors put too much money into young designers. That pushes them. They don&rsquo;t grow. It&rsquo;s a bad situation.&rdquo;
The initial shock eventually turned into recognition of his genius.&nbsp;Y&rsquo;s for Men&nbsp;launched, also employing the gender-meshing principles Yamamoto applied to womenswear. Initially launched in 1979, Y&rsquo;s for Men had its first show in Paris in 1984 (he went on to present his first menswear collection in Paris in 1984). Black has been a mainstay of the brand ever since. The designer&rsquo;s enduring passion for non-color stems from its ability to absorb light rather than reflect it, allowing form and movement to take center stage.

The big fashion houses do almost all the same things. It's so boring, don't you think?

It is a rejection of the overly decorative and the superfluous. &ldquo;For regular collections, I often use black or darker colors,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;because the color black doesn&rsquo;t bother people&rsquo;s eyes.&rdquo; Black has become synonymous with individuality and empowerment, but its function continues to evolve. It can also simply flatter the body. &ldquo;When I use it on the female body, the contrast between the skin and the color black is so sexy,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;When guys start wearing black, they look slim, which I like.&rdquo;
For this most recent menswear collection, black frames a selection of revisited outerwear that embraces olive, burgundy, and ash, bringing an element of muted romance to winter dressing. Puffers and quilted trousers take on sculptural shapes, while structured coats with exaggerated padding maintain elegance, thanks to tailored cuts.
&ldquo;I started thinking about the puffer jacket,&rdquo; he explains. &ldquo;It was already winter and there were so many people walking down the street with down coats, but made of polyester, because they can withstand the rain. They looked so ugly to me.&rdquo; In Japan and Italy, there are still craftsmen, but they are getting older and will soon retire. &ldquo;I wonder what will happen next. I am very, very frustrated by this.&rdquo; Yamamoto has long denounced the ruthless pace, the demand for an incessant upward profit curve, and the homogenization of creativity in the sector. But the balance between artistic independence and commercial interests is precarious, as he saw firsthand in 2009, when his company succumbed to financial difficulties and needed to be rescued by a private equity firm.

In the time since, a larger cultural shift towards gender fluidity has attracted a new wave of customers, much to his delight. &ldquo;Two or three years ago, young people started coming to my shop and buying,&rdquo; Yohji-san says. &ldquo;And I was surprised that guys shop on women&rsquo;s floors and pose like this,&rdquo; he says, gesturing animatedly.
This would have been unthinkable until recently. What was once radical is now natural, a testament to how deeply his ideas have permeated the culture. The lines that Yamamoto once blurred have mostly dissolved, leaving behind a world where fashion is no longer bound by convention, just as he always imagined.

Inside Yohji Yamamoto’s Enduring Legacy

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