In an exclusive interview with WWD last Friday, Yohji Yamamoto said that only about “2 or 3 percent” of the audience who watch his shows really understand and appreciate the level of work he puts into each collection. “Young people, be careful. Beautiful things are disappearing every day,” he said as he counseled them to resist adopting fast-fashion looks so that they might foster their own innate sense of style. The danger, Yamamoto seemed to suggest, lies in not understanding nuance in fashion in the face of “too much information by media, especially [through computers].”

Read more →

Paris Fashion Week (and therefore, Fashion Month) is almost at an end, but the shows are still as strong as ever. We have Sacai, a label that is building and expanding its reputation with innovative knits and hybrid garments, as well as pioneer and stalwart Yohji Yamamoto, who showed relaxed slouchy separates with a bit Read more →

Read more →

Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt.

PARIS–On a divided stage–one side covered in red fabrics and the other in black–a model emerged from backstage onto a raised runway inside the Marcel Cerdan at Bercy. The model was in a purple tank dress with a long train that fell to the side and a massive circular top hat with bow. As she came towards the end of the platform, she pulled on the long train that fell to the side, posed, and turned and walked back. These gestures and her long flowing dress recalled memories of past Yohji Yamamoto shows, particularly those held at the Sorbonne in the late 1990’s.

Read more →

PARIS–Often, a Yohji Yamamoto show is a serious discourse on the nature and the mechanics of fashion: cutting, draping, shapes and volumes. Sometimes it’s a complex illustration of fashion’s history. But at last night’s show, Mr. Yamamoto did none of that, even if there was a cage hoop skirt worn with a blood red wool and silk puffed sleeve coat, a red corset-wrapped dress, red hand-knit pantyhose, and red patent leather boots.

A long-sleeved, sheer chiffon, black and white eye pattern dress with a slide slit was worn over a layer of black fishnet and black combat boots. A white leaf-printed dress in black sheer chiffon was worn over white stockings. A black velvet coat was paired with a silk corset top, lace bodysuit, and a cut-out cage skirt. The rigid, circular frames of the skirt highlighted the juxtaposition of the hard and soft elements of this highly erotic collection, based on the notion of how a woman wears lingerie.

The hard-soft idea played out in the velvet fabric of a slit dress and a coat falling and draping over ridges of the cage skirt’s skeleton. There were several outstanding large lapel wool overcoats toward the end of the show for customers at the stores, but great too was the red and black multiple-layered chiffon and tulle dress with a red bra–a look uncharacteristic of the designer’s signature.

Read more →