Yohji Yamamoto

I think perfection is ugly.

Dirty, stained, withered, broken things seem beautiful to me.

Yohji Yamamoto (山本 耀司, Yamamoto Yōji, born 1943) is a Japanese fashion designer.

Quotes

• Generally speaking, I am not interested in the future and don't believe in it. First, I guess it is true that I don't trust the future, but, more to the point, I don't even trust the "myself" of tomorrow, nor, for that matter, of the day after. Basically, all I know, and all I am capable of understanding, is the "me" that is here, now, the "me" that has dragged his past with him to this point.
  • Wim Wenders. Notebook on Cities and Clothes (1989). (The above transcription is from Kiyokazu Washida. The Past, the Feminine, the Vain in Talking to Myself (2002), Ch. 1: Fashion, or the Gaze at the Past).

• I think perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion. If I can feel those things in works by others, then I like them.
  • Kiyokazu Washida. The Past, the Feminine, the Vain in Talking to Myself (2002), Ch. 2: The Feminine, or the Gap Which Cannot be Filled.

• In order to create an image almost similar to that of a pencil case standing up and walking, I try to eliminate all excess by cutting. I have the feeling that this process (of "cutting off") is linked in some way to "elegance". Elegance and so-called "eliminating excess", or the beauty that remains after excess has beeen eliminated...
  • Kiyokazu Washida. The Past, the Feminine, the Vain in Talking to Myself (2002), Ch. 3: Feedom or the Vain.

• Dirty, stained, withered, broken things seem beautiful to me.
  • Kiyokazu Washida. The Past, the Feminine, the Vain in Talking to Myself (2002), Ch. 3: Feedom or the Vain.

• I want to achieve anti-fashion through fashion. That's why I'm always heading in my own direction, in parallel to fashion.
  • Yohji Yamamoto. May I Help You? in Talking to Myself (2002), Ch. 9: Creation.

• My whole life is made up of: "I'm sorry". I feel like I have to apologize to people, to things, to life itself. It's like, "I'm sorry to be here". I don't want to disturb anyone. But in my work, in the clothes I create, I'm actually telling people that I'm here. So, I guess I'm disturbing them, after all.
  • Yohji Yamamoto. May I Help You? in Talking to Myself (2002), Ch. 12: The Expressions "Excuse-me" and "I'm sorry".

• To be modern is to tear the soul out of every thing.
  • My Dear Bomb (2011)

• It is also important to carefully read the cards that life deals you, and to play the right hand at the right moment for maximum effect. Having tasted a chilled champagne in a hotel suite is fine, but one should also have enjoyed a tasty glass of beer bought with one's last few coins while down and out. The breadth of experience will allow one to look into that cracked mirror, snicker, and hten tie a neckerchief into a bowtie and push back one's thinning hair. Now that would be a man with a genuine sense of style.
  • My Dear Bomb (2011)