Yohji Yamamoto, Holds An Enduring Influence

The Japanese Designer has perfected defiant dressing over more than four decades. In a time when fashion is more liberal than ever, he holds an enduring influence.

- Terence Poh 

Yohji Yamamoto has devoted his fashion career of over 40 years to perfecting an anti-establishment stance. Ideas such as “anti-trend” and “anti-fashion” are common themes in the Japanese designer’s shows. His defiance can be traced back to his debut presentation in Paris in 1981: At a time when European women wear designers prescribed cuts creating slim illusions or accentuating bodily curves, Yamamoto obscured the woman’s body with dark fabric draped and shaped in a manner that defied the prevailing visual norms in fashion. And everything he has since created has continued in this vein — to stay separate from fashion’s ideals.

He became known as a member of a select group of Japanese designers who made a splash in the West during a Eurocentric time in fashion, such as the late Kenzo Takada, Issey Miyake and Rei Kawakubo. And yet his work was vastly different in its tangible manifestations.

Yamamoto was born in 1943 in Tokyo, Japan. His earliest exposure to fashion was through his mother, who was a dressmaker in the city. He went to Keio University and graduated with a law degree in 1966, but decided he wanted to pursue fashion. This was met with resistance from his mother, who eventually allowed him to help out at her store, where he learnt how to sew from his mother’s assistants. Later, he graduated from Bunka Fashion College (which also counts Kenzo Takada and Junya Watanabe as alumni) and won a scholarship to go on a year-long exchange in Paris. This culminated in Yamamoto presenting his first collection in Tokyo in 1977.