If Yohji Yamamoto reminds you of the core of a subjective pause in the industry, his last foray into the Spring/Summer 25 season is extremely up for heart interpretations. Yamamoto’s collection, which was shown yesterday at Salons de L’Hotel de Ville, was very close to his sense of beauty. And far at the same time. The profundity of Yamamoto can be so subjective that you might feel pieces are not falling into the right place. Indeed, they are. They have always been. Those who conceive a subjective field give us the power to live a life we could have never imagined, a life of fairytales. A life of darkness and light. A life of fire, candles, mirrors, past and present happening all at the very same time.
For a few seconds, there was no music at the beginning of the show. Just like the past season, I thought. But then, the pianist Pavel Kolesnikov evoked surprise by playing an arrangement of Bach, Gluck, Ravel, and Japanese compositions. Yamamoto’s new collection and 43 looks experiments with floaty textures, movements, superposition, and reflections that awaken bodies and souls, in a way comparable to the waving of a flag in the breeze. A wind opened to show an encounter of fabrics recreating geometric worlds within a dress, a jacket, or a trench; of lace, words all around leggings, extended volumes in dresses, and materiality tying itself.
Most of the show was all about black, except for some burgundy, gray, and blue details. The final was a moment of… red passion? Is this the dramatic change from black to red? To distance yourself from the known. To decide to wake up and take the reins of your life. Only Yohji Yamamoto can express it. And we get to appreciate only a small bit of his understanding that goes beyond the business and industry.
A fashion show can enlighten a heart forever. It has the power to change the profound vision of life. Yohji Yamamoto has been doing this for the past decades. The story continues. The heart is awake.