Two exemplary designers and independent thinkers held back-to-back menswear shows Thursday night in Paris, in powerful reminders of how this is becoming a vintage season for men's fashion.
Yohji Yamamoto Homme: between Zidane and Wim Wenders
There's a little game us fashion lovers like to play at the Yohji Yamamoto Hommes shows: spotting the hipster looks, on and off the runway. And this season turned out to be an excellent harvest.
Soccer great Zinedine Zidane, an old friend of Yamamoto since he starred in the Y-3 campaigns two decades ago, sat beaming in the front row. Although the big star of the catwalk was Wim Wenders, the German filmmaker who filmed a very confidential documentary about Yamamoto called 'Notebook on Cities and Clothes' back in 1989.
Wim enjoyed two fashion runs on the concrete catwalk inside Yamamoto's European headquarters on rue St Martin in Les Halles.
First, in a hunting vest under a striped-lined professional crepe coat, a look topped with a gentleman's white turtleneck and a black silk stocking, he looked like a wise Viennese psychoanalyst. On his arm was an Asian beauty in a demure pleated skirt and an oversized six-button jacket.
The couple later appeared in white men's skirts dotted with abstract floral motifs. The five-times married wore a black, ankle-length men's skirt fastened with suspenders. Clown but very cool, with outfits finished with YY and WW.
“We became brothers a long time ago. We share the same memory from when we were very young: Tokyo was bombed and Berlin was bombed. Bombed cities,” emphasized Yohji, 80, while smoking his characteristic post-show cigarette.
While actor and former model Norman Reedus looked suggestively unkempt prowling the cement in a big black suit. Lined in fabric embroidered with letters reading. 'Entertaining people' under his knee; 'Yoyo Sale' on his back
Other displays of knowledge included Max Vadukul, the noted photographer, dressed as his catwalk companion in beige linen smocks. His letters read 'La Boheme'La Boheme. One of several other boys who marched arm in arm with a female model. The look on his date said, “Yohji is not for sale.”
The heart of the show was the opening. Eight dark, striped, herringbone and trench coats, finished with very fine hand paintings of geishas, Asian lingerie models and daring femme fatales.
“I think men should be men; “Women should be women and homosexuals should be homosexual,” said the always sibylline Yohji, in a packed backstage.
Dries Van Noten: the most modern tailoring shop in Europe
A proclamation in favor of Dries Van Noten's modernist tailoring and the final nail in the coffin of a major designer's street style.
This collection, which goes back and forth between fitted cigarette coats and loose, elegant singer coats, turned out to be a great wardrobe for men who want to look cool but classy.
On top of their coats was something else: undertaker's coats of midnight blue crepe or petrol blue whip that reached almost to the ankle; Victorian double-breasted looks with patch pockets; and the thin cocoons of Hollywood idols.
Dries' suits were also excellent, especially the long double-breasted models, whose waists began at the hips. Her pants were also top quality: like baggy denim pants with inverted pleats; or cargo pants with pockets that end below the knee.
“We varied from skinny pants to super wide pants and played with volumes because, well, every man is different,” Dries said.
Above all, there was a lot of creative tailoring: from cabins and duffle coats with horizontal zippers and micro vests with flap pockets that ended mid-chest; to a series of baggy jackets that were held at the sides with mini metal harnesses. Adding leather strips and lambskin gloves to suggest some martial mode.
Virtually devoid of color until a finale with blown up leopard prints used on nylon spy coats, dusters and cargo pants. Although again, when pixelating all the prints looked very new.
This fall 2024 collection was titled “Theme for Big Cities,” which was also the soundtrack, the Simple Minds classic blaring from the speakers inside the show's venues: a disused office building at the back of the Montparnasse Tower.
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