Fashion Definitions — fashion history, brands and industry terms from Apparel Search
Yohji Yamamoto, born on October 3, 1943 in Tokyo, is an internationally known Japanese fashion designer whose style suppresses mode with antimode. He graduated from Keio University with a degree in law in 1966, then entered Bunka Fashion College, graduating in 1969. He founded the Y's joint stock corporation in 1972, made his Tokyo collection debut in 1977 and his Paris pret-a-porter debut in 1981, founding the Yohji Yamamoto company in 1984. His lines are characterised by oversized silhouettes, drapes in glossy textures and often a single colour, particularly black. In 2003 his Y-3 line debuted, and he works as costume designer for film director Takeshi Kitano.
Yōji Yamamoto（山本 耀司、Yamamoto Yōji, born 3 October 1943) is an internationally known Japanese fashion designer.
The style he created "suppresses mode with antimode". He expresses his philosophy and avant-guard spirit in his clothing, frequently creating designs far removed from current trends. Basically, he makes a line characterized by oversized silhouettes; it typically features drapes (loose gathers and tatters) in glossy textures that naturally change with the figure's contours and movement. Often, a single color (particularly black) and a single shade are used. One could say that Youji Yamamoto tries to express himself through his clothing; customers who sympathize with those thoughts and spirit are charmed and become ardent fans.
The charismatic designer's brand, which received high praise both domestically and abroad during the 1980s, side by side with the likes of Rei Kawakubo's Comme des Garçons and Issey Miyake's Issei Miyake, formed the "DC brand boom". (DC is short for Designers & Characters. It is now called Designers' Brands.)
He currently serves as Takeshi Kitano's costume designer for the likes of Dolls and Zatoichi.
He was born in Tokyo. After graduating from Keio University with a degree in law in 1966, he entered Bunka Fashion College, from which he graduated in 1969.
Yohji Yamamoto is the so-called collection line (and, indeed, the other lines form a part of it); It could be said to be the purest form of the designer's expression.
Y's for living is a household goods brand, but it does not have any direct connection to either Yohji Yamamoto or the Yohji Yamamoto joint stock corporation.
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Designer Definition (from U.S Department of Labor)
Yamamoto's style is summed up in a paradox: it suppresses mode with antimode. Mode is fashion as the industry practises it — seasonal, trend-led, anxious to be current. Antimode is his counter-position: clothing designed from his own philosophy and avant-garde spirit, frequently far removed from current trends, so that a Yamamoto garment declines to announce its season. The visual language follows from the philosophy. His line is characterised by oversized silhouettes — clothes with room in them, which hide the body's outline instead of displaying it — featuring drapes, loose gathers and tatters, in glossy textures that change naturally with the figure's contours and movement. Often a single colour, particularly black, and a single shade are used. Black removes fashion's easiest signals of novelty and status, and drape replaces structure with movement: the garment is finished by the wearer's body in motion, not by the tailor's padding. The result is clothing that customers who sympathise with those thoughts and spirit become ardent fans of — the description is of a following, not a market, which is what a philosophy-based label creates.
His training began in another profession. Born in Tokyo, he graduated from Keio University with a degree in law in 1966, then entered Bunka Fashion College, Japan's famous fashion school, graduating in 1969. A law graduate who retrains in fashion brings an adult's deliberateness to the choice; nothing about the path is accidental. The company chronology is steady: Y's joint stock corporation founded in 1972, Tokyo collection debut in 1977, Paris pret-a-porter debut in 1981 with the Yohji Yamamoto line starting at the same time, and the Yohji Yamamoto joint stock corporation founded in 1984. In Paris he arrived alongside Rei Kawakubo's Comme des Garcons and Issey Miyake, and together their brands, praised domestically and abroad during the 1980s, formed what was called the DC brand boom — DC for Designers and Characters, now called Designers' Brands. Three Japanese designers with black, oversized, intellectual clothes permanently changed what Paris fashion could be; Yamamoto's 2002 haute couture collection in Paris, presented with relationships formed with exclusive Parisian boutiques, marked his full arrival at the level he had entered as an insurgent twenty years before.
His brand architecture is a family: Yohji Yamamoto the collection line, described as the purest form of the designer's expression; Yohji Yamamoto POUR HOMME and + NOIR; Y's and Y's for men; Y's for living in household goods; and Y-3, whose line and collection debuted in 2003, the year the Y's flagship store opened in Roppongi Hills. The structure lets one philosophy operate at many prices and purposes, with the collection line kept as the standard the others descend from. Outside fashion he serves as Takeshi Kitano's costume designer, for films including Dolls and Zatoichi — work that suits a designer of drape and silhouette, since film costume is read in movement and shadow exactly as his clothes are designed to be. From a 1966 law degree to a 2002 Paris couture show, the career is a single sustained argument: that clothing can refuse fashion's calendar and still build, decade by decade, one of the most durable names in the industry.
His style is described as suppressing mode with antimode: he expresses an avant-garde philosophy in clothing frequently far removed from current trends, characterised by oversized silhouettes, drapes and often a single colour, particularly black.
After a law degree from Keio University in 1966 he studied at Bunka Fashion College, graduating in 1969. He founded Y's in 1972, debuted in Tokyo in 1977 and in Paris in 1981.
His principal lines include Yohji Yamamoto, Yohji Yamamoto POUR HOMME, Yohji Yamamoto + NOIR, Y's, Y's for men, Y-3 and Y's for living. Y-3 debuted in 2003, the year the Y's flagship opened in Roppongi Hills.