Yohji Yamamoto at Large, at Piscine gymnase, Villa Noailles.
Forever positioned at the crossroads between the worlds of fashion and art, Yohji Yamamoto's showed in 1977 his first Y's collection in Tokyo and in 1981 he launched his Yohji Yamamoto line in Paris and then in New York. Yohji Yamamoto heralded a genuine rupture within the context of the flamboyant fashion of the 1980s through his conceptual world imbued with a radical poetry. As the instigator of an innovative aesthetic movement he has created a silhouette that is instantly recognisable for all others He questions the body's proportions, introducing a sensuality where it is unexpected, in the space between the body and the clothes. Like an a priori, he endlessly reworks the colour black, in order to explore its countless possibilities, punctuating his collections with touches of red, blue or green, always employed sparingly. He experiments with fabrics, manipulating them in order to create a lived-in expert on fashion history, he scatters his collections with allusions to the past, revisiting 18th century crinolines, work overalls and even traditional Japanese costumes. Endlessly questioning that which seems established, he deconstructs in order to better reconstruct, reducing clothes to their bare essentials.
Within this framework, art functions like a red thread, entwining the Noailles family's passion for the arts with Yohji Yamamoto's own works, which have always stood at the crossroads between fashion and the arts. Threading its way through the different events organised by the Festival, one might also perceive a reflection of its presence within the parallel exhibition of works by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, this photographic duo having previously collaborated in the creation of three catalogues for Yamamoto. The villa Noailles' pool room will also host its traditional exhibition dedicated to the president of the jury: locked away within the pool room, sleeping beauties will stay awake under the fluorescent lights, whilst Yohji Yamamoto and Y's creations will wander amongst the gardens, like a dialogue between fashion staples and everyday outfits.
The jury: Jean-Pierre Blanc, director of festival, Terry Jones, Jules Wright, Marc Ascoli, Alan Bilzerian, Yohji Yamamoto, Pascale Mussard, Olivier Saillard, Paolo Roversi - Paris, 22 January 2012, © Rene Habermacher, 2012.
