Yohji Yamamoto launches a platform of exclusive collaborations with Dr. Martens, Ambush, and Needles

On Wednesday, July 20th, at midnight in Japan, a mysterious website with a black interface appeared.Titled “Wildside, Yohji Yamamoto”, the Japanese designer’s new conceptual project highlights the label’s emblematic color within a digital platform promoting exclusive collaborations in fashion, design, and art. Since his very first collection “Y’s” in 1981, Yohji Yamamoto has been a leading figure of Anti-Fashion, a movement during the 1990s inspired by grunge culture that expressed a weariness regarding the polished world of luxury. He created a unique vision that questioned gender norms and rethought our relationship to clothing with floating or more architectural designs. In a subtle interplay between the constraint of the body and the liberation of the personality, his dark creations worn by models with a spectral gait have made their mark on the fashion world. Forty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, his creations have fallen within the scope of a specific aesthetic defined at the time as “post-atomic”. The Japanese designer was the first one to collaborate with the brand Adidas with his “Y3” line in 2002. As a precursor in the field of collaborations, Yohji Yamamoto now rewrites the everyday wardrobe with emblematic labels, such as Dr. Martens and Borsalino, and with Japanese designers known for their skills, such as Needles. Always drawing his inspiration from workwear and the austerity of the uniform, Yohji Yamamoto launches an exclusive unisex collection on his platform, declining the label’s DNA through a range of black pieces, from military uniforms to workwear and sportswear clothing.

The “Wildside, Yohji Yamamoto” project bears witness to the designer’s tendency to break out of the box, just like his creations have the tendency to overflow display cases to invite the visitor to touch them, like in his 2005 exhibition “Juste des vêtements” at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Making his practice a hybridization between fashion, art, architecture, and design, he once again opens that conversation with “Wildside”, an immersive digital experience mirroring the label’s rebellious identity. Divided into the three following categories – “Fashion”, “Art”, “Content” – the platform includes numerous collaborations with designers, galleries, artists, and journalists. Regarding fashion, exclusive capsule collections are presented. For the occasion, the Japanese experimental jewellery label Ambush is using its iconic POW! pin pattern in a variety of black accessories. The Needles collection, a partnership with the eponymous Japanese brand that reinterprets the classic American wardrobe, offers black sportswear pieces with stripes, adorned with a butterfly and a red peony. “Wildside” emblematic flower is reused by the Japanese label Noma t.d and embroidered on a unisex shirt. Regarding art, Yohji Yamamoto invites the Japanese gallery Akio Nagasawa to present a selection of black and white photographs of Japanese architect Tadao Ando’s sensual smooth concrete architectures taken by Takay. The Japanese gallery Taka Ishii is also displaying a cutting-edge curation. Among the artworks, an erotic black and white photograph by Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama titled Tights. With his unexpected new project “Wildside”, the iconic designer Yohji Yamamoto shares an iconoclastic vision of fashion, infused in a sharp and functional wardrobe.

Discover the collections and collaborations on “Wildside, Yohji Yamamoto”.