Yohji Yamamoto pares back to essentials in Paris show

Yohji Yamamoto has presented a collection at Paris Fashion Week that distills his signature style to its essence

Yohji Yamamoto presented a Paris Fashion Week collection Friday that distilled his language to its core: monochrome, urban, fluid silhouettes, touched with flashes of rebellion.

The show opened with pared-down black looks, some bearing graffiti motifs, before soft fringed ensembles in sandals lent the severity a gentler sway.

Tartan arrived in shredded, deconstructed form, interrupting the meditations on black with a jolt of pattern, followed by white gowns that trailed in strips, ethereal yet raw. Foliage-like bands traced torsos like abstract vines. Finally, red emerged in sculptural coats — a flourish of drama that underlined his instinct for subtle spectacle.

At 81, Yamamoto has long resisted fashion’s cycles. He is still the master of deconstruction: puzzle-piece coats, layered bustles, and Cubist geometries have defined his decades of work. Here, though, he leaned into simplicity, echoing his recent shows where fragility and empowerment are in balance, and where black becomes a multidimensional canvas.

The staging was hushed, the models’ slow stride amplifying the sense of timelessness. In an era of constant reinvention, Yamamoto’s refusal to chase novelty reads as radical. His clothes remain unmistakably his: esoteric, emotional, and enduringly chic.