This men’s season in Paris has been heavy on the collaborations, but Y-3 remains a cut above. Now in its twenty-third year, the Yohji Yamamoto x Adidas enterprise may not feel as novel now as it did back in the early 2000s, but to take a temperature check at its hardcore show this evening, Y-3’s cultivated sense of cool is again heating up.
To set the scene: a huge rectangular LED light hung from cables in the center of the vast Pavillon Cambon Capucines. It flashed with rippling light in time to the thump of bass as it was slowly elevated over the runway, to a front row that included A$AP Nast, and the Top Boy actors Kano and Hope Ikpoku Jnr.
We started off with some black technical looks—an oversized leather jacket, a trench dress with slits at the arms that revealed what looked like white chiffon at the elbows, and cargo pants with kneepads—before moving into fully-functional motorcycle suits. The model Gabbriette half-wore a red leather one, unzipped and hanging from her waist. She wasn’t smoking a cigarette while walking away from a burning car, but she looked like she could have been.
The moto pieces turned out to be courtesy of Italian manufacturer Dainese—a longtime collaborator with Yohji Yamamoto. They appeared alongside other more wearable pieces from Japanese streetwear label Neighborhood (whose designer Shinsuke Takizawa is a motorcycle fan), which included leather and nylon racing jackets emblazoned with Y-3-N. It was a black and white biker jacket from this latter union that caught the eye of A$AP Nast, who headed backstage after the show to try it on.
The abstract burnt amber print that bled across white knits and black puffer jackets recalled both flames and flowers, bringing some Yohji romance in to temper the Adidas sportiness. The malleable wire that was threaded through the insides of hat brims, coat seams and neckties so that their edges warped and kinked in uncanny directions also seemed like a Yohji inflection, and lent an extra dimension to the triple stripe designs. Indeed, what’s appealing about Y-3 is that it brings out the best of both sides.
To take this collection intuitively, it succeeded because it felt simultaneously tough and sensitive, which is testament to the creative respect that the businesses in question clearly show to one another. It’s still somewhat surprising that an auteur of Japanese fashion and a German sportswear behemoth should find such synergy, but here we are. Health Goth lives on.
