Yohji Yamamoto's new exhibition is an ode to the future

Yohji Yamamoto. Letter to the future, marks a new chapter in imaginative programming. Twenty-five garments, like calligraphies, trace a letter to the future: an imaginative statement that cuts through space in an exhibition parade dedicated to fashion culture, at 10·Corso·Como Gallery, envisioned by Tiziana Fausti, crossing aesthetics and conceived as a single installation. Presented by 10·Corso·Como and Yohji Yamamoto, curated by Alessio de'Navasques - curator and lecturer of Fashion Archives at Sapienza University of Rome - the exhibition gathers archive pieces, all from the Yohji Yamamoto Collection, from different eras and seasons, from 1986 to 2024, marking the chapters of a missive directed towards the future, defining the designer's ambivalent and poetic relationship with time. It's challenging to distinguish garments and collections in their ability to remain both contemporary and timeless: a hallmark of the designer's work is indeed the radical ability to dismantle and reassemble archetypes, providing a personal vision of the present, past, and future.

«It has been an honor for me to work with one of the most extraordinary authors that fashion can boast. Yohji Yamamoto combines a sense of Zen spirituality with the carnal and dramatic power of form. Since his arrival in Paris in the early eighties, his message remains indispensable and very strong to this day. We are witnessing a historic moment where, just as in the years of his debut in Europe, physicality seems to have freed itself from superstructures and gender stereotypes, yet we are overexposed, continually judged, as happens on social media. Yohji Yamamoto's message, however, is that of the body acting upon the garment, through its imperfect and welcoming forms, encompassing every kind of body and spirit.»

Alessio de'Navasques

The garments are displayed, without scenic artifices, on tailor's dummies similar to those that gave them life in the atelier: thus begins a path of correspondences between his reflections on the sense of the future - printed on the wall - and a selection of archive pieces, demonstrating his relationship between body and garment in surpassing the chronological dimension. Imagining the time of his creative process, the time that enriches materials with patina rendering them perfect, and the time of his garments when they will be worn: a sensation that dissolves into black, a cosmic shade, defining that "silhouette of everything". In his volumes, there seems to be no longer a beginning or an end, because the air circulates between body and fabric, and the garment seems to breathe without the constraints of a predefined form. Historical elements of Western fashion, like the iconic faux-cul of the red silk coat from FW87, whose unique silhouette was immortalized in the shots by Nick Knight under the artistic direction of Marc Ascoli, resonate in the current and forthcoming transposition, corresponding with one of the majestic looks that closed the March show in Paris: a gray wool coat, whose tail will softly move over the body of the wearer only next winter. Aligning garments from different collections, from FW97 where felt becomes origami, to the performance show of Spring 1999 where models shed crinolines, veils, and layers of fabric, revealing the essence of form, to the three-dimensional robe manteau in FW24, and many others, the path emphasizes Yohji Yamamoto's quest for a universal silhouette, in a continuous, rigorous reflection on the relationship between body and garment. The designer's insistence on a concept of welcoming imperfection for every form, the experimentation with volumes and fabrics - manipulated or left to slide, draped or sculptural - are recurring motifs that have revolutionized the relationship between garment and person, as a universal message of a freedom looking towards the future, above time.