Born in Tokyo in 1943, Yohji Yamamoto was raised in post-war Japan by his mother,
a self-employed seamstress and a war widow. Yamamoto’s earliest years were spent
at a French Jesuit school; then he studied law, graduating from Keio University in
1966, before obtaining a degree from the prestigious Bunkafukuso Gakuin (‘Bunka’)
College of fashion in 1969, when he received two fashion awards, the So-en and
the Endo fashion scholarship which took him to Paris. Two years later, in 1972,
he launched his women’s ready to wear (prêt à porter) label ‘Y’s’ and in 1977 he
presented his first collection in Tokyo.
Following his success in Japan, Yamamoto presented his women’s ready to wear
collection in Paris and launched his ‘Yohji Yamamoto’ label in 1981, followed in 1982
by his first collection in New York. His first menswear collection was shown in Paris
in 1984. Along with his experimental ‘Yohji Yamamoto’ label, he introduced more
affordable and wearable lines under the labels ‘Y’s For Men and ‘Y’s For Women’.
In 2002, he presented his haute couture collection in Paris.
Currently the Yohji Yamamoto fashion house has six principal ready to wear lines:
Yohji Yamamoto, Yohji Yamamoto pour Homme, Yohji Yamamoto + Noir, Y’s and Y’s
For Men and Y’s living which does not have any direct connection to him. His
partnership with Adidas, which started with the 2002 women’s collection, created
the Y-3 label in 2003 and is one of the first and most successful collaborations
between a top fashion designer and an activewear manufacturer. In 2006, Yamamoto
committed to designing luggage and accessories for Italian luggage specialist
Mandarina Duck, under the label Y’s Mandarina. His shoe designs for the iconic
Doc. Martens brand arrived in 2007 and his ‘Coming Soon’ label of young upmarket
casual wear is due early in 2008. Yamamoto has his own stores in Tokyo, Sapporo,
London, Paris and New York as well as many other retail outlets worldwide.
Yamamoto’s creative collaborations included a film portrait of himself with Wim
Wenders, ‘Notebook on Cities and Clothes’ (1989), as well as costume designs
for Takeshi Kitano’s films ‘Brother’ (2000) and ‘Dolls’ (2002). He has also created
costume designs for the Opéra de Lyon (1990), the Wagner Opera in Bayreuth
(1993), the Kanagawa Art Festival Opera (1994) and the Ryuichi Sakamoto Opera
(1999). A black belt in karate, Yamamoto is a passionate devotee of rock music
which during the first half of the nineties he pursued as a creative complement to his
design work, creating a rock music group and recording several albums that were
sold in Japan.
Throughout his career, Yamamoto has received various awards, including the
Fashion Editors Club (FEC) Award, Tokyo (1982, 1991, 1997); Mainichi Fashion
Award (1986, 1994), the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), Master
of Design (1999), and the French Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres (1994),
the only Japanese designer to receive this honour, followed by the French National
Order of Merit (2005). He was awarded the Japanese Medal of Honour (2004) and
an Honorary Royal Designer for Industry from the Royal Society of Arts (2006). ‘Yohji
Yamamoto Talking to Myself’ (with philosopher Kiyokazu Washida), an illustrated
notebook that recounts the phases of his life and the objects he creates, was
published in 2002, and in the same year photographs of his work by various artists
were shown in solo exhibitions at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie,
Paris, and the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. In 2005, his garments
were shown in exhibitions at three venues, ‘Correspondences’ at the Galleria
D’Arte Moderna di Palazzo Pitti, Florence, ‘Juste des vêtements’ at the Musée de
la Mode et du Textile, Paris and in 2006, ‘Dream Shop’, at the Mode Museum,
MoMu, Antwerp.