Yohji Yamamoto's sailor chic

Not an August has gone by since 2006 that I haven't thought about Yohji Yamamoto's Spring/Summer 2006 RTW collection, the humor behind it and how soothing it feels to look at these garments in summer heat. I see this part of the collection as a very smart take (or even parody) on sailor chic, which we usually associate with navy and white stripes, chunky, preferably gold jewelry and coral red nails. In this case the navy (+ black) and white are there, but the chic is defined by a completely different aesthetic reminiscent of real sailors, perhaps even the ones because of which the idiom "swear like a sailor" was invented, although I don't think the femininity of Yamamoto's clothes is inferior to that of classic sailor chic (a matter of two perceptions, each at its own end of the spectrum). The biggest "sailor chic revised" factor? The rope. Long, weighty and ragged, the kind you see in every self-respecting port in the world. It screams raw, but the outfits remain undeniably elegant. Nothing like a blast from the past after you've gone through the Fall/Winter 2010/11 collections for the n^th time, realizing only a fraction of what was presented tells stories worth telling.


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