Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto has always come off as a really down-to-earth person, whose fashion line aims to fulfill the most wholesome of ideas through avant-garde tailoring and abstract concepts. For his most recent designs, the 75-year-old master tailor has called upon the Japanese painter Yuuka Asakura to create a very endearing portrait of his dog, along with a painting of Yamamoto himself.
The collaboration with Yuuka Asakura comes as a part of Yohji Yamamoto’s 2019/2020 Autumn/Winter collection. Yamamoto decided to make a utilitarian move and print Asakura’s paintings on a blouse from his 2016 Spring/Summer Men’s Collection. The paintings are sort of abstract and include the image of Yamamoto’s “femme fatale” dog Rin, a skeleton man, and a portrait of Yohji Yamamoto himself. The artwork has been created with a sort of scribble technique that appears chaotic close-up, but looks fairly detailed at a distance. Being the main component of this season’s release, the blouse fetches the fair but hefty price of 58,000 yen ($537 USD).
Yuuka Asakura’s paintings are also available printed on T-shirts, canvas tote bags, and knitwear. In addition, to precede the collection, Yamamoto has teamed up with New Era to create a cap and hats with his signature stitched on the front. The hats and caps have been made from wool garbadine, a material that is synonymous with Yohji Yamamoto’s name. In my opinion, baseball caps can either look casual, but in Yohji Yamamoto’s case, they come off as extremely sophisticated. Seeing Yamamoto’s signature in black on a black cap would make me feel a little intimidated by the wearer.
The artwork from the collection will be displayed alongside the clothing in an installation in the YOHJI YAMAMOTO AOYAMA shop from September 14 until October 15. Visitors who went to the exhibition after 5 pm on the opening day received a special CD, “YOHJI YAMAMOTO COLLECTION TRACKS by JIRO AMIMOTO” as a gift. You can visit the art exhibition YUUKA ASAKURA FOR YOHJI YAMAMOTO in Aoyama, Tokyo between now and October 15, from 11 am until 8 pm.
