Yohji Yamamoto once again offers a visual spectacle, challenging the very preconceptions of fashion. In Yamamoto’s perspective, beauty and ugliness intermingle, forming an abstract canvas where every stitch tells a story.
His Spring/Summer 2024 collection is an exploration of contrast, a tug of war between the aesthetic extremes of pulchritude and imperfection, simultaneously embracing and rebelling against traditional norms of attractiveness. Inspired by the paradox of a masterpiece marred yet somehow enhanced by a wild beast, Yamamoto experiments with the symbiosis of wild and refined, ugly and beautiful.
Venturing onto the runway, models donned Yohji Yamamoto‘s trademark felt brim hats, each bearing the unique scars of an imagined wildlife encounter. This intentional distortion underlined the collection’s essence – finding allure in the asymmetric, the damaged, and the unconventional.
But Yamamoto’s daring dance with discord wasn’t limited to raw hat edges. The collection was an artistic garden filled with the most intricately detailed specimens. Sweeping jackets and voluminous trousers were decorated with light-catching dragonfly brooches, ruffles that frothed like seafoam, and a symphony of painterly prints.
Stepping further into the realm of untraditional, Yamamoto’s collection flirted with the fashionably ragged. Tattered edges of coats and pants whispered of a nomadic spirit, while chunky, lasagna-esque ruffles cascaded down roomy trousers. The mundane was alchemized into an accessory; ordinary safety pins, silver and jangling, sprang from the pocket of a long black jacket.
Art met fashion in a beautiful collision as Yamamoto replaced these mundane safety pins with brooches of fluttering dragonflies. These, along with other artistic touches, adorned striped or crinkled jackets, introducing a homely charm that whispered of handcrafted authenticity.
In a stunning tribute to classic artistry, prints echoed the majesty of 16th-century oil paintings, with angels in dramatic descent gracing dark suits and the visage of a bejeweled noblewoman illuminating the front of a fluid, long shirt.
Yohji Yamamoto’s collection begs the question: In the face of such extraordinary creativity, do terms like “beautiful” or “ugly” hold any meaning? With every stitch, every unconventional detail, Yamamoto celebrates the freedom of aesthetic interpretation and invites his customers to partake in his joyous rebellion. Beauty may indeed lie in the eye of the beholder, but this collection makes it clear that the heart of true fashion lies in the courage to explore, innovate, and, perhaps, redefine what we perceive as beautiful or ugly.
© Photos : Monica Feudi
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