For the past few years, Yohji Yamamoto has communicated a version of the same message through his spring collections: the earth is getting hotter, and men might be wise to consider how to dress for this. Today, as most guests looked extra-dewy and with everyone still marveling over last night’s deluge, it was as though the oracular designer had every right to say, “I told you so.”
Instead, he approached this outing with a full arsenal of intellectual, beautiful, and practical clothes designed not only to be light and breathable; they were covered in surefire conversation starters about the state of the world.
Every Yohji show unfolds in distinct chapters, and this one began by drawing our attention to the ways in which weightless and casual short sleeve shirts and loose trousers can look polished, slightly jazzman-ish. But this was merely a low-key prologue for what followed: unstructured layers in some seductive riff on pajama dressing and grunge that explored church and science as graphics. Think: stained glass windows and tracery motifs along with underwater organisms. Both emerged out of default Yohji black, as though illuminated by an indirect light source. Simultaneously, there were myriad sans serif statements about nuclear war, oceans, microplastics, love, hydrogen ions, and a personal favorite, a nod to Byron with, “She walks in beauty.”
The vivid stained glass graphics and more subdued tracery patterns that appeared like collages were a kind of divine intervention. There was a broader message here, like, “Humans are capable of building extraordinary things and exploring terra incognita, yet we are self-sabotaging as a species.
Other chapters included loungey sartorial juxtapositions—a dark striped waistcoat worn under a white cotton pajama set; a series of semi-sheer pieces that were accessorized with eclectic and opulent clusters of necklaces, brooches, and even anklets as a dressed-up nomadic look; and finally some spacious suits and two jumpsuits—the final look featuring a stained glass fragment of what looked like a heart shape. Throughout were sleeker versions of that amphibious city sandal genre or else several classic sandal iterations that accentuated the relaxed attitude.
The music interspersed instrumental tracks that had an outlaw streak and Yamamoto’s tender covers of “Endless Love,” “What a Wonderful World,” and “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” that prompted guests throughout the room to mouth along.
After taking his bow, hat in hand, Yamamoto castigated politicians broadly for their inaction, “otherwise the earth will end so soon.” He did not need to proselytize; this was already a creative cri de cœur that felt special to witness—and surely will be to wear.