Yohji Yamamoto. Photo by Heji Shin
The four-day marathon that is Berlin’s Gallery Weekend enjoyed an uncharacteristic kick-off in 2013 with “Cutting Age”, a runway show of iconic pieces from the last 30 years of Yohji Yamamoto’s career. It was uncharacteristic for two reasons: firstly, the city’s art scene cultivates a rather cautious relationship to the world of fashion, despite the occasional crossover collaboration. And secondly because, outside of presentations of Y-3, his collaboration with Adidas, Yamamoto has never shown his collections in Germany before. But Yamamoto is not just any fashion designer, and the 70-year old introspective conceptualist himself takes a critical stance on the fashion world: “I hate fashion. Or the word fashion, which sounds colourful, extravagant, expensive and gorgeous,” he said at a talk the following day. “I never wanted to walk the main street of fashion. I have been walking the sidewalks of fashion from the beginning, so I’m a bit dark.” He also insists – though his creations are often treated as such – that fashion is not art.
“Being a real creator is like climbing a mountain. You need training. Training, training, training… don’t design with your brain, design by your heart, your soul.”
Nevertheless, the high-calibre event held at St. Agnes-Kirche (which houses Johann König’s new exhibition space) and sponsored by Audi, bore testimony to the spectacular things that can materialise in the city of Berlin – and in Berlin only. What it may lack in glamour or fashion pedigree (though the event did draw the city’s most interdisciplinary, savvy fashion and art crowd) is minimised in the face of the striking connections that exist between its patchwork architecture, latent traces of history, and personal biographies – or twists of fate. Staging Yamamoto’s show in St. Agnes-Kirche seemed significant beyond the fact that this is Berlin’s newest event hotspot (a cocktail with Stella Mc-Cartney was hosted there a week later). Just as Yamamoto’s own biography was shaped by WWII, the iconic Brutalist structure of St. Agnes, situated between social housing blocks in the district of Kreuzberg, invokes the Modernist ideals underlining post-war Germany’s approaches to urban revitalisation. The relationships between design, economics, functionality and modern living are written into the massive slabs of concrete, and were formative ideologies at the time Yamamoto received his formal education in fashion design. It is hard to imagine another location better fitted for the show.
With some 36 outfits, starting from 1992, and though it had not been conceived as a retrospective (sadly, pieces from the Eighties weren’t in good enough condition, and chance played a large role in final selection), the show provided a varied view of Yamamoto’s offerings from beyond the fashion mainstream. Along the signature palette of blacks, the runway beamed with radiant yellow, red, blue and turquoise, while “real people”, cast in an open call the previous day, cut through the impressive, solemn architecture in wearable and somewhat less wearable creations. A play on the notion of a garment’s shelf life, the passing of seasons and with it, of trends, was commented to great effect by casting older women as well as young models. Yamamoto’s belief that one should “live” the clothes was beautifully and vividly demonstrated by a pair of voluminous Shepherd’s check numbers that were sent down the runway in sequence, one worn by a young model, and one by a silver-haired lady.
“Cutting Age” collection at St. Agnes-Kirche, Berlin 2013. Photo © Ornella Orlandini
For Yamamoto, who became a dressmaker at his mother’s behest so he could support her (his Law degree didn’t seem to provide secure enough of a career path for the war widow), seeing the world through a widow’s eyes from a very young age sensitised his approach to designing for women. “I have been controlled by femme fatales for more than 60 years. And even now,” he candidly supplied in “An Evening with Yohji Yamamoto” at Soho House Berlin, the second instalment in the four-day Yohji in Berlin micro-season that started with the runway show and continued with a talk, a screening at MADE space and an installation by his set designer, Masao Nihei, at Andreas Murkudis’ celebrated concept store. “I naturally love women but at the same time, I hate. I want revenge in some way. The reason I could continue to work till now is revenging.” Sleek met with the designer between events to discuss the disappearance of craftsmanship, the changing industry and the loss of spirit in clothes – all phenomena that Yamamoto famously laments. There is still hope for fashion, though, and the financial revival his eponymous line, once bankrupt, is enjoying lately is the best proof thereof. “For the last two years, my new company has been making money. It was a big surprise.”
Sleek: In 2011, the Victoria and Albert Museum held a retrospective exhibition of your work, and here in Berlin you showed pieces from the last three decades of your career – you’ve done a lot of rummaging through your own archives recently. How did that feel? And did it have any influence on your new collections?
Yohji Yamamoto: I hated it. It’s the first time I made a runway show using archive [material]. It was an “interesting” experience… [sighs]. It was so boring! The archives reminded me of the moments when I made [the clothes] and then, somehow, I regret some things… so I don’t like to do an archival exhibition.
You would go back and change certain things?
Yes, therefore, I rather work with new material. The reviews of your latest runway show in Paris this March claimed that it seemed like many collections in one, like you have so many ideas in you and so much more to say. Is this what you wanted to communicate with the collection? I think I myself became a finer fashion designer. A finer clothing designer. The others in Paris are like stylists, not real creators. It’s quite hard to find real clothing creators [now]. I’m losing my rivals. It’s very sad.
There’s a whole generation of designers showing in Paris now who were strongly influenced by you, and who are doing very interesting things. Do you not see any potential out there at all?
I don’t see them as rivals though – more like followers. It’s nice to be followed. And this kind of DNA is very important for the fashion world: thinking of how to cut, how to drape, how to create. For making a dress you have to use your fingers, your hands [holds hands up and moves fingers]. It’s very important because your hands are culture. Your soul comes out at the tips of your fingers. Fashion is the last business of craftsmanship. And this is going to disappear.
That’s a sad premonition. My generation is stuck between huge conglomerates that make overpriced, branded handbags, and the fast fashion chains that copy them. Both ends of the spectrum are getting bigger and more global. Everyone is wearing the same things everywhere. Is the industry eating itself?
Yes, those bags, they’re being presented like chocolate pralines. For today’s generation I say, just shut your eyes. Better watch a good movie, read a book, look at art, a sculpture. For fashion, the news comes too quick. On the internet, we see a [live stream of] the runway show the moment it is happening. It’s too convenient. This convenience breaks people’s mentality. Being a real creator is like climbing a mountain. You need training. Training, training, training… don’t design with your brain, design by your heart, your soul. At universities, they don’t educate in this way, they teach in an academic way, as if fashion were like studying art. Fashion is not art. At the beginning, fashion is making clothing. And only after making clothing, some of it can become art. Clothing is not art from the beginning, it becomes so afterwards.
When does it become art? When it’s implemented in everyday life? On the body in motion?
Exactly. Ultimately, on the body. But Haute couture has disappeared; it’s the times of ready-to-wear. Everything is RTW. When in fact it [should be] a kind of love romance: you meet some fantastic clothing by chance, and you fall in love and you live this piece of clothing. You don’t waste clothing but live with it. Please, don’t waste clothing!
“Cutting Age” collection at St. Agnes-Kirche, Berlin 2013. Photo © Ornella Orlandini
Is there anyone whose aesthetic ideas ever influenced you?
Not really, my muse is non-existent. It’s in my imagination. For example take a book, written by a talented writer: when you read it, sentence by sentence you imagine, your imagination travels, it produces gorgeous things. But if you see the movie based on the same book, you must be disappointed, 100 per cent. “Oh no”, you think “my protagonist didn’t have this face!” Your imagination is your own world. It’s very dangerous to lose the capacity to imagine.
Your approach is often considered as being very serious, mostly because of your heavy use of the colour black, or rather, over a dozen different types of black. But there’s a lot of humour and biting commentary in your work, too. Is humour important for you?
Humour is challenging. You see, making tragedy is quite easy. Making something comic is very hard. Comedy requires higher knowledge and superior technique.
Do you think the messages you make with your collections are understood?
I don’t care… I really don’t care. If I have 800 people in the audience, maybe five or six people understand. It’s okay, that’s enough.
Your daughter is also making a name for herself in the fashion world. Considering what you think of the industry today, how did you react when she started designing?
Sometimes I find my daughter’s designs [to be] things I could never make. Male designers and female designers naturally differ in vividness. Female designers can design by imagining wearing the clothes. But we male designers can’t wear long dresses, so our imagination can be limited.
Or maybe not – you can imagine things beyond the borders of your body. Or is that just my misinformed, romantic notion?
But take the design of a simple black T-shirt. This neckline [draws a line under his collarbone with his finger] is very difficult, because the black fabric against the skin… it’s creating a border. So if you don’t concentrate on drawing this line carefully, the T-shirt loses its own charm. A female designer’s T-shirt is always charming.