“These three avant-garde designers have become an international ...

spaces implicated in this Yamamoto exhibition phenomenon follows the various training
of the organizers. Asian art curators, Architecture and Design curators, and fashion
specialists—Costume curators or the designers themselves—all participated in the
dialogue. Here, I will explore these themes highlighting key examples from this
exhibition history—numbering over twenty.
Yohji Yamamoto was born in Tokyo in 1943. Although his initial formation steered
him away from the clothing industry (he attained a law degree from Keio University in
1966), in 1969 he graduated from Tokyo’s Bunka Fashion College (Bunka Fukuso
Gakuin). Yamamoto worked in his mother’s dressmaking shop before opening Y’s Inc. in
1972 and presenting his first Tokyo collection five years later. He went to Paris in April
1981 (at the same time as Rei Kawakubo) and by that autumn was granted membership to
the Fédération Française de la Couture, du Prêt-à-Porter des Couturiers et des Créateurs
de Mode. Yamamoto’s first museum exhibition in 1983 came just two years after he
debuted his prêt-à-porter collection in Paris, which incited visceral reactions of both
wonder and contempt. An article in the October 21, 1982 issue of Le Figaro warned
against the “yellow danger,” and described the “World War III survivors’ look.” 3 Others,
however, appreciated his work as a visionary and important contribution to fashion. This
perception of his clothes as different from the fashion norm, as taking part in a larger
artistic phenomenon almost overcoming fashion, caused museums to take notice. 4
Yohji Yamamoto has been called a philosopher, a genius, a poet, and an artist.” 5 He
aligns himself with the figure of the heroic artist, noting, “Creating art should be done in
a process of struggle and suffering […].” 6 In Fashion Zeitgeist: Trends and Cycles in the
Fashion System, Barbara Vinken elucidates other’s similar opinions, notably when
2