Yohji Yamamoto’s naked truth. The 82-year-old Japanese fashion designer leads a company that generates over $200 million a year in sales and records steady growth of +15% a year. The designer is confirmed as an unconventional fashion maverick, who although appears increasingly concerned about the future of the fashion industry. In a lengthy interview with Business of Fashion he (in photo) expressed his anger and concerns about a fashion industry that – in his opinion – has lost itself. Here are his 3 most significant sentences.
Yohji Yamamoto’s naked truth
“Fashion has become a joke. It’s all about money. The big companies in the fashion system are like children playing soccer, running after the ball. They don’t think about their customers. I simply think they have too much money, so they don’t need to work hard”.
Costs and consumption
“Year after year, my creations are becoming more and more expensive because production is becoming more expensive. But people don’t want to spend on well-designed, cut and made clothes. The industry is going faster, so generally, when you visit fashion stores, everything looks the same”.
Generational change
“Workers who specialize in yarn, fabric, dyeing and so many of these important techniques are disappearing all over the world. These jobs are very, very difficult and complicated. High skills are required, but the workers are getting older. Young people don’t want to do them because they seem too difficult. They don’t want to take the place of their fathers or uncles. They don’t want to jump into that world, so specialists are disappearing. In this sense, I think the fashion world is disappearing”.
