Sex appeal is among the strongest ways to assert relevance. Yohji Yamamoto, as it happens, had never given much deliberate thought to sexiness, but that changed, he said backstage, with this collection. To wit, Anna Dello Russo and Carine Roitfeld praised the designer following the show. Their respect for him aside, neither woman generally makes an obvious match for the esoteric strangeness of Yamamoto's clothes. Tonight, however, it was easy to see how they might soon be revealing a pane of skin in one of the loosely secured dresses, or a swath of leg in an off-kilter blazer and gold Lurex brief.
Still, when Yohji does undressed, there remains an element of the unhinged: Jackets appeared to be peeled open in arbitrary places, with forearms granted more coverage than upper backs. With some laced-up silk sheaths, it was as if the girls got into them wrong, only to determine they looked right. Webby knits and lace, all produced in Japan, often seemed so temporarily tacked or strung in place that modesty was hanging in the balance. Perhaps that's why some looks came accessorized with fabric-covered helmets: Don't worry about protecting the body, as long as you protect the mind.
Yohji seemed sensitive to the fact that his man-repelling clothes were ruining his mojo. "Simply, I wanted to break this taboo from a long time ago," he said. But if sex sells, beauty endures. Hence the wedding dress, the only showpiece that required boning and involved fresh dahlias and orchids. "This time I wanted to play with flower gardens, because sexuality and flowers' beauty for me are the same," said Yamamoto. "Flowers are not always beautiful; women are not always beautiful. It depends on the conditions." Certainly, with a portentous tango on loop and louche gold leather coats falling off shoulders, those conditions invited parallels to the Newton-esque dominatrix or Brassaï's demimonde—minus one major difference: Yohji's fetish is flat soles, whether nondescript black derbies or red boxing boots. Which is to say, his sexiness is not restrictive. He made one other remark, and then left the rest unsaid: "Showing the body is very delicate. When you show it too much, it becomes nothing."
