Pour Homme
Autumn/Winter 1998
(images via FirstView)
A menswear show modeled entirely by women, with a special guest appearance from Vivienne Westwood.
Yohji rocks.
"My starting point was that I wanted to protect a human's body. This is the beginning, actually hiding women's bodies. This is about sexuality, about protecting. it. From the very beginning of my career, I was not very sure that I would become a so-called fashion designer. It sounded very light - 'fashion designer'. When I think about the image of a fashion designer, I have to think about trend. I have to think about what's new, what's next, what kind of feeling consumers want. It's too busy for me. So, from the beginning, I wanted to protect the clothing itself from fashion, and at the same time protect that woman's body from something, maybe from men's eyes or a cold wind. I wanted people to keep on wearing my clothing for at least 10 years or more, so I requested the fabric maker to make a very strong, tough finish. It's very close to designing army clothing.
Army clothing has very obvious functions, so from spinning the cotton onwards, they do very special mixtures, and I have been doing the same thing. First we determine how many threads or warp should be in one inch. This layer is very important as it is very stiff - the weft is a little softer. It takes that balance, and also when it's wool, cotton, silk, they live forever. They change, they age. It's so charming when clothes and fabrics age. One reason why young people love second-hand clothing is that it has a character, or it has a story already, or it has some human message. So I'm always close to second-hand clothing or army clothes."
Like finding a lost wedding ring
Yohji Yamamoto in conversation with Ligaya Salazar
Yohji Yamamoto, Exhibition Catalogue, (V&A, 2011)
"When did women begin to put their hands in their pockets? Did it start with Marlene Dietrich? We can be sure, at least, that it started after women began wearing men's clothes, and also that in the current age that masculine pose is fully accepted, considered just another fashion. Nevertheless, I find I still like to attach pockets.
[...]
I read somewhere, perhaps in a medical book, that people's grief gathers in their ankles. Grief, sometimes dating back decades, sinks towards the earth and gathers in the ankles. People believe that they have gotten over those sad events, and they press forward as usual in pursuit of their own backs as they carry some idealized vision of who they are. It is all rather paradoxical: they carry with them, in each and every step, the very grief they believe they have trampled underfoot.
There are women who have passed through the gates of hell and learned of both the bitter and sweet in life. At times grief will rise from them only to then fade away, like burning incense. The scent never clings to her. These women are truly well bred, the truly noble, and it is to them that I would like to offer that perfected pocket designed with the single slice of a razor."
Yohji Yamamoto, My Dear Bomb, (Ludion, 2010)
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