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.

As Yohji’s career has progressed, the stark detachment from the time and place that defined his early work has gradually eased away. In recent decades, he has made several direct nods to modern pop culture, typically by way of his “Ground Y” diffusion line. However, this piece comes from his mainline, Yohji Yamamoto Pour Homme, and references Ultraman, an iconic Japanese TV show which, through licensing and subsequent spinoffs, has become a multi-billion dollar brand. This knit specifically references one of those spinoffs, 2001’s "Ultraman Cosmos,” with the show’s name knit into the left sleeve, and “YOHJI” into the right. Presented here in brand new condition with the original fabric replacement attached.

Condition: 10/10. Brand new with tags and fabric replacement. 

Tagged size: 3

Shoulder: 18in

Pit to pit: 22in

Length: 25in

Sleeve: 31in (measured from neck)