A few days after Yohji Yamamoto’s fall 2023 womenswear show at the beginning of March, Paris suddenly fell quiet following a blockbuster week of fashion shows. Most of the fashion crowd had left the city upon Paris Fashion Week’s close—but Yamamoto, who is based between Tokyo and the French capital, remained. I meet the designer, in all his enigmatic glory, chain-smoking cigarettes while drinking black tea at a small table tucked behind glass doors in the Hotel Costes lobby. There he sits—wearing, of course, his signature black hat and one of his own deliberately oversized black suits.
It’s rare for Yamamoto to do an interview at all, as he typically avoids chatting with press after his shows and rarely speaks candidly. Instead, he tends to offer symbolic platitudes of overarching themes in short spurts. But the designer is also known to throw in a surprise every now and then. He is the rare sort of artist that even people of all ages who don’t follow fashion know; the kind of legendary figure who’s become a symbol in the annals of fashion, a torch in the canon of style. He’s worshipped at the altar of archive fashion and respected by generations young and old for his fashion high (runway) and low (Adidas Y-3). “I never follow rules. I like to break them,” he says matter-of-factly, eyebrows raised. His tone is profoundly quiet, and he leans forward to speak at almost a whisper level, with soft mannerisms and even more impeccable manners. “I’m not a rebel, I’m a crime.”
Looks from Yohji Yamamoto’s fall 2023 Paris Fashion Week show.
Yamamoto’s unique way of speaking is heroically slow, but totally impassioned. He often takes pauses so long that I accidentally interrupt him (on more than one occasion). It’s a rarity, especially in today’s…
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