Y-3 is no joke.
From the ground up this line is history of the future.
Yoji is a F****** genius. That's a given. Adidas is relevent again. But no one antisapated this. Go to the website. It's right!
Y-3
The Label
Not a lot of athletic-apparel companies would let an avant-garde Japanese designer get in the way of their drive toward the bottom-line mainstream, but the collaboration between Yohji Yamamoto and Adidas has proved itself critically and commercially and inspired similar matchups (Adidas also has a line with Stella McCartney, and Alexander McQueen has done pieces for Puma). From its first collection, spring 2003, Y-3 was meant to be a real business for both sides, not a vanity project. Adidas shows it on the runway every season (at first in Paris but more recently in New York). A voluminous skirt or a distressed gray-jacket might seem an odd thing to find on the sales floor at a store attached to a sports brand, but Y-3 is doing well enough that accessories have been added and freestanding stores are starting to appear around the world (although none in New York, as of fall 2006).
The Look
Yamamoto, ever a fan of convenience (his clothes always have generous pockets, a rarity in the not always practical fashion world) and new fabric technology, takes the basics of athleticwear, like tank tops, warm-up jackets, and sweatpants, and amplifies them with new proportions and colors.
The Designer
Yamamoto was born in Tokyo in 1943 and studied law before attending the prestigious Bunka Fukuso Gakuin design school. He presented his first womenswear collection in 1972 in Paris under the name Y’s, and he brought out a higher-priced signature label nine years later. He has several fragrances as part of his deal with Procter & Gamble, and his 2003 partnership with Adidas created the Y-3 label, one of the first and most successful of the designer-activewear marriages. In summer 2006, he signed a deal to design luggage and accessories for Italian luggage specialist Mandarina Duck, and his chief executive Keizo Tamoto wants to expand Yamamoto’s +Noir sportswear line and accessories.
In addition to the admiration of his peers (Donna Karan wears Yamamoto), he’s has acquired numerous awards. He’s the only Japanese designer to receive France’s Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres. Not only does Yamamoto dress a large chunk of the international arts community, he’s also collaborated on film projects with Wim Wenders, Takeshi Kitano, and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and done costumes for the Pina Bausch Company and the Wagner Opera.
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