Yohji Yamamoto - Fashionista

Yohji Yamamoto

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Street Style: Julia Is a Sucker for Funny Jewish Men

Name: Julia What do you do? I'm the founder and CEO of NMRKT. What was the last thing you bought? Actually this Opening Ceremony x Adidas sports bra. What are you currently obsessed with? Assembly New York's entire collection. Their store has been an obsession for a long time, but since fall I haven't been able to keep my eyes and hands off their new line, to the point where the sales associates anticipate me coming in weekly. Who is your celebrity crush?

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Fantasy Dressing the Met Ball Guests

The Met Ball is like the Oscars for the fashion industry: all the best people in all the best dresses. This year's theme, punk, presents an interesting conundrum: will people go all out, liberty spikes and Givenchy nose rings and all, or just throw some studs on a Chanel suit and call it pseudo-punk? We're hoping for the former, and so in the spirit of going the distance, we've picked out our favorite punk fashions and paired them with Met Ball regulars like Anna Wintour and Julianne Moore and some fantasy guests (Bjork, anyone?). Click through to see the looks we want to see on the red carpet, and let us know what you're hoping for in the comments.

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Yohji Yamamoto Spring 2013

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]."

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Y-3 Spring 2013

The Clothes: For Y-3’s 10th anniversary, designer Yohji Yamamoto gave us what we’ve come to expect – brilliant, conceptually challenging sports-meets

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Yohji Yamamoto Men's Fall 2012: 'I Did It My Way'

Long Nguyen is the co-founder and style director of Flaunt. PARIS--There’s something about the integrity of Mr. Yohji Yamamoto’s work that resists succumbing to seasonal trends. You have to respect designer who follows his own vision despite the warp speed pace of fashion changing around him. It's more often the case that the fashion world eventually catches up with him--you can see his men's pantsuits in many of the women’s collections shown here in the last two seasons. In a small showroom on the Rue Saint Martin, Mr. Yamamoto, as usual, used a range of real people and fashion models--young and old, large and slim sizes --a reflection of the real people who purchase his clothes. When the show ended, guests exiting one way and models another--some of the dressed-to-the-nines editors (blood red elbow gloves on one and a rabbit hat and blue Mongolian fur on another) seemed more done up then the models. And maybe that has always been the point for the designer who pushes boundaries only with how he cuts the clothes, often using the same fabrics season after season:

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Beauty

Paris Beauty Roundup Spring 2012: The Best and the Quirkiest

It's hard to generalize about the beauty looks across the major fashion capitals, but we're going to go ahead and do it anyway. New York is either easy-breezy or loud and brash. London makeup artists usually go crazy with their palettes, while Milan is generally sophisticated and strong. Paris, much like many of the runway collections, is pretty with a theatrical streak. Check out our favorite looks (which, as usual, are the ones that are the most fun to look at.) Though this season we may have to try a few of these out in real life. Photos: Imaxtree

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Yohji Yamamoto Spring 2012: To Thine Own Self Be True

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.

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Business

Fashion News Roundup: Real Housewives' Danielle Is Now a Stripper, Tilda Swinton With a Bowl Cut, and Images From Iris Apfel's Jewelry Line

Peek Iris Apfel's Jewlery Line for HSN: The inimitable icon of everything accessories is having a moment (though, honestly, when isn't she?). Recent news of an upcoming jewelery line with HSN is now supported by a few choice pics, resplendent with all the great costume-y kitsch you'd expect. Clear space around your neck accordingly. {Racked} Danielle from Real Housewives NJ Becomes a Stripper: Ultimate LOL! After her contract was not renewed for next season, 48-year-old Danielle Staubs has signed a three-year contract with a New York gentlemen's club where she will give one live, fully nude performance and pose for the club's website. Bravo: the real gateway drug. {Daily Mail} Yohji Yamamoto Reflects on Life and Ideals: Adidas produced a 30 minute documentary, "Yohji Yamamoto: This Is My Dream," as a semi-promotional tool but probably wasn't expecting it to be quite so, well, good. The doc chronicles the month leading up to the Y-3 show at New York Fashion Week and the designer is surprisingly open about his personal life and creative processes, commenting on his desire to simply "cut clothes" and remain outside of the vicious trend cycle. {WWD}

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Yohji Yamamoto Fall 2011: A Sliver of Sex

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.

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Y-3 Fall 2011: Homeward Bound

Tucked away in a dim room below street level in SoHo awaiting the Y-3 show, we sat on rustic benches and music from what could have been a John Wayne film blared from the speakers. We half expected to see a tumbleweed roll by, but instead we saw models properly outfitted for a journey into the wilderness. Inspired by the idea of escape into the the hills on horseback or by foot, Yohji Yamamoto equipped his fall collection with messenger bags, hooded scarves, leg and arm warmers, short bill caps, voluminous coats and ponchos as well as plenty of neoprene pieces in case of inclement weather.

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Japan Fashion Now at FIT: A Review and A Confession

Fashionista contributor Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt. REVIEW: Curated by Valerie Steele, Director of the Museum at FIT, Japan Fashion Now--an exhibition extended through April 2, 2011--surveys the past 30 years of Japanese fashion with a comprehensive view of contemporary fashion in Japanese society. In Japan, fashion has always occupied a central role in delineating gender, social and political roles. The exhibit starts with the Japanese revolution--from the designers who went to Paris in 1981 to showcase their unique creations--and moves on to the years of economic downturn that resulted in today’s youth oriented styles like Gothic Lolitas, Forest Girls, Bosozoku (biker punks), and Mambas. And those are only a few among the many diverse expressions of subcultures, depending on the areas where the kids hang out: Harajuku, Shinjuku, Shibuya or Akihabara. The show demonstrated the incredible creativity of fashion in Japan.

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The Best Shoes of Spring/Summer 2011

Forget diamonds--shoes are a girl's best friend. The SS11 runways were full of new "best friends" for shoe addicts everywhere. From Alexander McQueen's and Rodarte's sculpted wedges to Calvin Klein's lucite and wood stilettos, there's something for every girl, even sneakers (from Giles and Yohji Yamamoto, of course)! Trying to pick a favorite may cost you hours, so why not just love them all? Click through to see the best of the best shoes from the Spring runways!