Some more notes on an event I went to at the Victoria and Albert Museum: Professor Frances Corner in conversation with Yohji Yamamoto.

Photographers like August Sander and Irving Penn, especially their images of people in everyday working clothes, have influenced Yamamoto greatly. What appeals to him most are the clothes that are a functional statement, related to the body.

Often, Yamamoto chooses to hide the body, make it into a house, a house made of cloth. Then, the imagination gets to work and tries to work out what is inside the house. That, to Yamamoto, is sexier than letting it all hang out.

Yamamoto is aware that he is probably a very contrary character. Whatever is considered appropriate, polite, on trend, he runs away from. ‘I am a very twisted man!’

Yamamoto has this to say on fast fashion: ‘I am praying – don’t waste clothes.’

BDW