To level accolades upon Yohji is like, as Leonard Cohen once said about Bob Dylan, “pinning a metal on Mount Everest”. He claims himself to not be an artist, he says fashion has never been an art, yet to deny the artistic quality of his work would be to deny what our eyes can plainly observe. Like an impressionist painter, he exhumes the depth of relatively simple garments (dirty clothes, the Japanese press branded his early work), taking a form and rendering its function secondary to the emotion he choses to evoke. He refuses to do all the work for you, where a passerby sees a wrinkled coat and oversized, strangely buttoned shirt, a man willing to consider the rorschach presented to him may see anything from romanticism to suffering. This foundational concession — that there is no answer to what precisely you’re looking at — has rendered Yohji a favorite of artists and thinkers across the world.

This lightweight gauze cotton shirt displays a collage of traditional Indian iconography alongside hindi calligraphy, which is deployed both in its native tongue, and in English to transcribe translated marketing slogans of textile companies. Yohji’s own name, misspelled, is displayed prominently, along with an oversized safety pin for closure.

Condition: 8/10. Yellowing around the collar.

Tagged size: 4

Shoulder: 20in

Pit to pit: 25in

Length: 33in

Sleeve: 27in