Yohji Yamamoto celebrates his new collection in a rare visit to New York

Cities are not immune to the hypothetical scenarios portrayed in the recent Netflix drama 'Dark Matter.'

While 20HeTwentieth-century New York architect and genius Robert Moses was creating the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, an extension of the superhighway that nearly cut through Soho and effectively bisected lower Manhattan at Broome Street. If that had happened, the neighborhood and the city would have had a very different trajectory. The land at 52 Wooster, on the corner of Broome, that houses the recently opened Yohji Yamamoto store would certainly not exist.

Instead, thanks mainly to New Yorker Jane Jacobs, the iconic street was saved and is now prime real estate for Paris-Tokyo-based brand a-garde, which returned to the city after a hiatus of more than one of each.

So on Tuesday night in Manhattan, fans, press and digital creators attending the brand's in-store cocktail party caught a glimpse of 80-year-old designer Yamamoto as he visited the store for the first time since it opened in September. 2023 to celebrate the Fall/Winter 2024 collections of Yohji Yamamoto and Yohji Yamamoto Pour Homme.

Finally, the designer returned to Tokyo after his Spring 2025 menswear show, which featured one of his favorite muses, actress Charlotte Rampling.

Yamamoto arrived midway through the event and was greeted like all the royalty and fashion legend he was entitled to. He greeted the Akito dog statue – a nod to his own pet and the company’s mascot – at the store entrance by patting the fake dog on the head. Then the crowd filling the long, narrow, brutalist-inspired store parted to allow the designer to walk through the store to a VIP space at the back.

Although several gave him a nod, it wouldn't have been surprising to see someone bow, as the atmosphere was that of witnessing a fashion god in person. According to brand representatives, Yamamoto had not been in New York for almost a decade.

They took in it all: French-Canadian actress and model Coco Baudelle, trap metal rap pioneer ZillaKami, Stevie Wonder’s son Kailand Morris, indie actress Sophia Lamar, and designers Thakoon Panichgul, Elena Velez, and sculptor Misha Kahn and others who enjoyed Champagne, ginger ale, and chocolate truffle brownies while taking in the store’s large overhead screens that showed runway shows of the collections on a loop. The store represents a new concept in retail design for the brand, focusing on a “physical-to-digital” experience.

New to the store will be the addition of Yamamoto's daughter Limi Feu's collection, which was on display and will be sold alongside Yohji Yamamoto's collections for the first time in a flagship store. Feu, née Yamamoto, He was also present and said through an interpreter that the last time he was in New York was almost 30 years ago and that he had the flu. While this trip was an improvement on that experience, she said she had been resting a lot in her hotel room during this excursion. Feu's designs share a similar aesthetic to her father's, although with a more street and rock vibe.

The Yohji Yamamoto brand was launched in Paris in 1981 and soon debuted in New York in 1982. In 1988, the brand opened its first New York boutique on Grand Street, which was remodeled in 2005.

In 2010, the store closed its doors (as did another location in the Meatpacking District) following a corporate restructuring after the designer filed for bankruptcy in 2009. A new investor stepped in and effectively saved the brand at that time.
Yamamoto, who can boast fans and muses spanning the decades, from Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, Drake, a young Justin Bieber and Wim Wenders, has more than bounced back since then, as collaborations with brands including Supreme, Playboy, Japanese baseball team the Giants and streetwear label Neighborhood have boosted the brand.

These partnerships and the popular Y-3 Adidas brand have helped the designer appeal to a younger demographic. He has also become nostalgic for anything that reflects the New York vibes of the '80s and '90s, vibes that wouldn't have existed if Moses had been able to do what he wanted. Fortunately, it was not like that.