Yohji Yamamoto

Yohji Yamamoto was born in 1943 in war-torn Tokyo and raised by a single mother who survived as a dressmaker. He trained in law at Keio before switching to Bunka Fashion College in 1966; in 1972 he launched his own label, and in 1981 he showed in Paris alongside Rei Kawakubo. The reception was identical: confusion, then conversion. His clothes were black, oversized, deliberately worn-out, and engineered around movement rather than display — the absolute opposite of the Mugler-and-Versace decade that surrounded them. The Yamamoto vocabulary settled into a few recurring obsessions: drape, asymmetry, the wabi-sabi pull toward imperfection, and a passionate engagement with menswear that ignored the prevailing decade's fascination with the bodybuilt male form. He has called his work 'anti-fashion' more than once. Adidas thought differently, and in 2002 the two parties launched Y-3 — perhaps the most influential designer-meets-sportswear partnership of the 21st century. His couture-level main line and the more accessible Y's continue alongside it. At 81, Yamamoto still designs both lines personally and has refused virtually every offer to sell, license, or financialize the company. The result is one of the last truly independent luxury houses in the world.