Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto shops are opposite each other in Conduit St , and never fail to make me smile with joy at the beauty, imagination, and intelligence of their clothes .
Both designers make unexpected forms and combine construction and intricacy with abstraction and gesture. The clothes are wearable , beautiful, flattering forms which touch your soul.
During the late eighties, when I very first started to make painted clothes I haunted such shops ….trying to understand how fashion , art and clothes worked in relation to each other. Poor as a church mouse, I was persuaded to part with more money than i actually had in the world – for a silver grey, lovely, woven shaggy edged jacket by a friend who understood these things , in Issey Miyake in Brompton Road. Thank you Fiona , I still wear it every day in the winter, it has nourished me every year and will continue to do so. Thank you for showing me the beauty of clothes full of soul.
His 2010 collection 132. 5 still takes my breath away
There is constant imagination at play and the results look effortless , as in the best of creativity.
AND best of all – when I was taking the picture of the Yohji window I realised , through the viewfinder that I was seeing perfume bottles in the window . He has re-released his most beautiful perfume, YOHJI, after 11 years of searching – it’s back. Gary and I share it.