KCIDigital Archives

The KCI Digital Archives on the KCI website presents image and text information for the objects in the collection, arranged in chronological order.

Pantsuit

© The Kyoto Costume Institute, photo by Takashi Hatakeyama

You can enlarge by putting the mouse cursor on the image.

Pantsuit

Autumn/Winter 1986

Designer
Yohji Yamamoto
Brand
Yohji Yamamoto
Label
Yohji Yamamoto
Material
Gray-beige wool gabardine jacket and pants; brown leather patch on jacket; similar panel on pants.
Credit Line
Gift of Ms. Akiko Fukai
Inventory Number(s)
AC9706 98-28-1AB

In 1981, when Yohji Yamamoto, along with Rei Kawakubo (COMME des GARÇONS), first presented his collection in Paris, showing looks that countered the West’s architectural approach to making clothes, their impact was a “Japan Shock.” Later, however, Yamamoto’s work came to represent two technologies seen as worthy of passing down to future generations—tailoring and couture (MITI Journal, April 1988). Tailoring is used here in the sense of the hand-made production of menswear, and particularly the suit style that traditionally relied on sewing suits to fit the individual wearer. This ensemble borrows from that style, but uses brown leather for the collar and a patch on the bottom right at the front of the jacket. It also has asymmetrical lengths, and a large panel attached to the pants like a wraparound skirt. It represents a re-interpretation of Western tailoring traditions, and can be seen as one of the works that are characteristic of Yohji Yamamoto’s style in the second half of the 1980s. The year it was produced, 1986, was also the first year that Yamamoto won the Mainichi Fashion Award.

1980s