Pop Magazine | Words by Michael Collins
Photograph by Nicolas Guerin ©The Talks
Yohji Yamamoto crossed my mind for the first time in some time at the elegant dorm of the Grand Ferdinand hotel in Vienna.
There were four of us in neighbouring beds encased in glossy teak, with starched white sheets, and a room lit by a starry Lobmeyr chandelier. Breakfast was 32 euros. A bed for the night was £28. We decamped each morning to the nearby McCafe, where my paltry McMuseli paled beside their hearty breakfast meal. My fellow travellers were as silent and unsocial here as back at the dorm. These three room mates were young. In their twenties. Japanese. Two men and one woman. What they had in common apart from their nationality was a particular wardrobe. Not the Westwood kit evident on the young Japanese scurrying through the high end shops on the Herrengasse, nor the heritage brands on Japanese elders, their raised iPhones capturing everything and nothing: McDonalds golden arches, the Ferris wheel from The Third Man, Goethe immortalised in stone on the Ringstrasse. As I say, they were silent. They were monosyllabic when addressed. Responding to mundane questions as though too cool to speak, or possibly alarmed by an inquisitive, bald, bespectacled English man in his fifties. (That would be me). He was propped up in bed each night as they arrived back late. Dressed in Wäscheflott pyjamas, flitting through internet footage: episodes of 'Giri/Haji’; the latest from Paul Joseph Watson, framed by a map of the world, and addressing his one million You Tube followers from his Battersea bunker. Conservatism is the new counter culture he told us. Perhaps he’s right.
They were coated head to toe in black, these three. The shade that saw us elders through the finals months of punk, and the early age of electronica that began, from some of us, with the first Yellow Magic Orchestra album; made in Japan and packaged in yellow vinyl. Back then black was disturbing. Historically, a forbidden colour found at funerals. Were we in mourning for the losses yet to come? Or aiming for alluring; hinting at a mystery and a depth that was wishful thinking at that troubled tender age. Nevertheless it was a dramatic statement in subways, on tube platforms on wet, week day London mornings. Defiant and proud. Here was a refusal to indulge in colour or pattern that summoned the Adolf Loos line that ornamentation is a crime. Black was accessorised with monosyllables or silence. A menthol cigarette, perhaps. It was radical, but tweaked with tradition. The cut of the clothes was standard: straight trousers, fitted shirts and skirts, regular coats and jackets, ruler-thin ties and heeled shoes. Both traditional and western.
They were coated head to toe in black, these three. Flat pumps. Shapeless, interchangeable and androgynous clothes. As familiar as the layered lines of Yohji Yamamoto that were so at odds with the general designs of the early-1980s. Perhaps these were his creations. He was still with us after all, and there had been a show in Paris the previous spring that went down well. Not the headlined revolution when he made his debut there in 1981, but worthy of a column or two. From the outset commentators were lost for words as Zen-like, pale-faced models sauntered down the catwalk to the tap of an amplified heartbeat. So much so that the one memorable phrase that bubbled to the surface and stuck was ‘Hiroshima Chic’. They were lost for words because Yamamoto and his fellow ‘avant-garde' designers - Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, Issey Miyake - were bringing something fresh to fashion and the West in 1981. An antidote to the fitted clothes and fat shoulder pads that we're beginning to define the age. These were reminiscent of the garments Yamamoto saw imported by Japanese women when he was a child. His ambition was to offer an alternative to the glossy magazine look, and that fruitless pursuit of perfection: 'I want to see the scars, failure, disorder, distortion.’ The last collection featured loose threads and white stitching on what had long since been a signature look, and an original slant on couture. Long, black, layered, oversized garments. Something he attributed to the influence of his mother who dressed as though in mourning. Other inspirations were the paintings of Pablo Picasso and the photography of August Sander. Yamamoto took the traditional Japanese work wear of men and placed it on women. He said he was protecting women’s bodies, in order to keep a mystery and an allure, by revealing little. Protecting them from what was never clear. Maybe they were in mourning for the losses yet to come.
There it was: Hiroshima Chic. It was well timed for those of us coming of age in that era and tapping into the Japanese trend in the margins. This in itself was an act of youthful rebellion, this blossoming interest in the Orient, as we were allowed to refer to it back then. It was a trend that rattled our elders. Our British parents had experienced life during wartime, and now carried grudges as deep as scars into the modern age. Notably when it came to all things German and Japanese. They wouldn’t buy a car made in either country. New, used or otherwise. The Japanese capacity for cruelty could match and perhaps outweigh that of the Germans, they said. What's more, one of their number broke up The Beatles. We, their moody, mournful offspring, with our jet black clothes and yellow vinyl, could forgive the Japanese for wartime torture, yet we would not forgive our parents for being old. Evening though the BBC re-runs of Tenko and Monkey suggested they might have a point. Before 'Hiroshima Chic' was on the lips of those on fashion’s front line, something was afoot. Bad pop entered the charts by way of 'Japanese Boy', 'Turning Japanese'. The Face had Siouxsie Sioux go geisha for one cover. And there was David Sylvian fronting Japan the band with those featherlight Ferryesque vocals, and leading us to the exquisite 'Forbidden Colours’ with Ryuichi Sakamoto. 'Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence’,’Mishima’…. Definitely something afoot. Into the clearing came the women’s wear of Yohji Yamamoto, with moody androgynous men attempting to ape it and make their own versions long before he turned his attention to them. His clothes were as synonymous with the decade to those of us with a particular sensibility on these bleak, weekday London mornings in subways, on tube platforms as the films of Wim Wenders and the soundtracks of Philip Glass. It was fashion that was somehow interchangeable with film, music and art.
In 1989 Wenders made a documentary about the designer - ’Notebooks of Cities and Colours’ - celebrating his ethos and output. In Yamamoto’s words: 'I simply cannot stand people’s tendency to become conservative. There’s always a move back to established conventions, otherwise upcoming waves would be soon categorised as common sense. Even the term avant-garde – avant-garde is now just a tiny fashion category. It became so cheap and pretentious. I hate it. But still, I strongly believe in the avant-garde spirit: to voice opposition to traditional values. It is not just a youthful sentiment; I live my life by it. Rebellion. You will only be able to oppose something and find something of your own after traveling the long road of tradition.' We now inhabit a time in which the restraints of the conservatism he rails against are in abundance within the attitudes and activities of those that cast themselves as radicals. So we’re returning to established conventions in an attempt to reconnect with shared values, by keeping the baby and tossing out the bath water. Especially those like Paul Joseph Watson, his million followers - me too - and the working class northerners that broke the red wall and jettisoned the Labour party in the recent election. Conservatism is the new counter culture some say. Not the party itself. Not Boris Johnson, Thatcher or even Disraeli. But conservatism as a radical move against the risible, reactionary state that currently passes as progressivism, rebellion and radicalism itself. Now we need another wave that can be categorised as common sense. Those of us that harbour that - it’s a dud, dead phrase, I know. I’m embarrassed - ‘avant-garde spirit’ that Yohji Yamamoto continues to champion.
Maybe, like him, we’re doing exactly what we’ve always been doing - rebelling. Conservatism is the new counter culture. Railing against those that would censor us, stifle us, mock us for not fitting the limitations of their parochial political outlook.
(It was not only there in the election result, but in the commuters dragging Extinction Rebellion ‘activists’ from the roofs of trains at rush hour. It was there in Ricky Gervais’ cocky take down of the hypocritical Hollywood elite at the Golden Globes.) We, the old soul rebels. We’re justified and we’re ancient. We’re old they say, by way of another slight. Yet it is not youth that unites those that define themselves as our enemy, whether they are the ludicrously posh poseurs of Extinction Rebellion or the boutique communists on Twitter. It's often their class or pedigree, or privileged existence that binds them. They are as cheap and pretentious as the avant-garde that Yamamoto has grown to loathe. They are outmoded. Over. Otiose. So what next for radicalism and rebellion now that it is has found itself in the mainstream, in the spotlight and in crisis?
As Yohji Yamamoto says, rebellion is not solely a youthful sentiment. Sometimes you need to have lived long enough 'to oppose something and find something of your own after traveling the long road of tradition'. It’s important to know which conventions and values and institutions to cling to. Yamamoto knows this. In an age of super high tech he champions the skills and craftsmanship of the tailor: 'This industry is the final industry which is done by people’s hands, which I like. I’m still (focussed) on how to cut, how to express how movement is beautiful.’ He is now 75 years of age, in an industry dominated by Young Turks, and one in which so many of his fashion contemporaries have gone the way of all flesh. 'I’m walking on the dark side of the street,’ he says. 'I’m just an anti, a punk designer…' Although richer than the rest of us - the old soul rebels - he is us. Those of us whoring ourselves about industries dominated by the young in which middle age is frowned upon almost as much as championing Brexit and voting Conservative. Fighting your corner in middle age; rising, rallying those rattling bones, those ailing muscles, is in itself an act of rebellion, by those not ready for the pension, or the grubby puzzle and blanket bath that awaits at the hospice on the horizon. Having your faculties is one thing, but what if you also have ideas, opinions and things to say? What if you still harbour the enthusiasm that propelled you into those industries at the beginning? Now it’s not simply a question of ambition, but persistence and perseverance. The crime here, apparently, is not only being old but remaining interested. And so we press on; pursuing those ideas instead of cluelessly attaching ourselves to trends. It’s something Yohji Yamamoto has never done - attached himself to trends. A move that has proved central to his success. Perhaps this is why Wim Wenders once said that the designs of Yamamoto managed to be both old and new at the same time. They are timeless, some say. Those that buy once and buy well; those who keep a Yamamoto garment forever. Which is as he likes it. In the past he has purposely worked with fabrics that have a lifespan of a decade or more.
For a while he felt like a fossil. He was concerned that he’d ceased to see his clothes on the streets, as though they'd become objects in a museum. For a moment they were. Even though they certainly didn’t belong there. Some of us that saw the 2011 retrospective at the Victoria & Albert museum were surprised at how wrong these clothes looked on mannequins in such a sterile environment. It was perfect for Valentino, Dior, McQueen and all those shows that followed, but Yamamoto’s designs required movement to understand their impact. They looked lifeless, wrapped, draped, and slipping from the shoulders of static models. A far cry from the impact of that famed Paris debut. This last show in 2019 was an act of rebellion rather than an expression of mourning, according to the designer. It was proof that he remained interested. 'I became like a young girl, and making clothing was deep fun,' he said. ‘Not like some great master of fashion.’ He is still keen on imperfection; still keen on protecting the bodies of women. But again and again, from what? The male gaze? Following the repercussions of #metoo and the rise of the western burka. ‘I prefer to show the hidden body,’ he says. 'I’m a man but I think that what is on the inside is sexiest.’ The staples of a Yohji Yamamoto show were there: Zen-like, pale faced androgynous models in black. All the customary components were evident: scars, failure, disorder, distortion. Imperfection was achieved. In short, on this designer’s terms, it was a success.