Early October 2021, it’s still hot during an atypical Paris Fashion Week, with few foreign presences, fashion shows, and showrooms (effects of the pandemic and all relevant restrictions).

After almost two years of absence from the Ville Lumière, with great expectations, we plunge into the neighbourhood hosting Marc Le Bihan‘s space, in the 13th Arrondissement, near Place d’Italie. We don’t really know this area well and it seems not to be so familiar to the fashion circuits. So it’s a surprise, for us, to walk on quiet little streets up to the small hill called Butte-aux-Cailles. Step by step, we get close to rhythms that are completely different from those left only few subway stops before, in the far more animated Marais. We feel the reassuring silence of popular areas on days off and the diffuse white of the houses, like a sunny village on remote Greek islands, interrupted by recurring colourful murals. Bewildered by the sudden change of perspective, almost holiday-like, we arrive, with perfect punctuality, at our appointment.

A blue-stained door opens to welcome us into the French designer’s workshop, located right next door to his home. This is where he has been moving with his showroom for the past few seasons. Far more spacious than in the store in the Pigalle area, it spreads out behind a magnificent green indoor patio, carefully set up to welcome friends and clients with the sincere warmth that distinguishes his mild and generous attitude. An ability to put everyone at ease that involves every single cell, leading it to a zone of comfort and well-being. The meeting is almost touching, after so long and with all the changes faced. We are brought back into the working mood, only after relaxed and affectionate greetings, seasoned with ironic lightness, thus studying and mentally composing the choice of a vast collection, spread in several rooms with soft lights.

A path inside a poetics further evolved from last seasons, where Haute Couture harmonizes with the archive (always present) and novelties with a more contemporary taste.

We have already extensively presented it in the past (for an in-depth look, see here) and Marc Le Bihan manages to develop the same idea of femininity with extreme consistency and creativity, without giving in to the drift of ‘everything returns’ with dreaded and boring redundancies. Although he has now been in this sector for several years, in his 2022 spring/summer collection a tension toward experimentation both, formal and textile, is evident. From the ‘writings’ with moving and contrasting under-stitching that emerge from complex dyeing of silk, daring experiments that halve the size of the starting fabric, to textile patchworks that with the constant use of the idea of an unfinished work – an open work – generate garments with ambivalent categories. Even when you wear it, partially jacket and partially shirt, able of placing themselves, depending on their combination, in very elegant settings or in more informal everyday contexts.

And the presence of tulle, so recurrent in his path, is elaborated within a range of colours that, in impalpable overlays, sketch nuances of touching poetry. A certain latent romanticism, is always included thanks to compositions with more composed and severe lines, with raw-cut profiles and complex tailoring constructions or rough ruffles in silk and elastane.

The assortment is complex, not easy to subtract elements from a symphony in which everything is interconnected, but, in the end, re-emerging from an almost hypnotic enchantment, you find yourself in a personal selection that Marc observes, with curiosity and satisfaction, struck himself by the inexhaustible interpretative possibilities of his proposals.

Meanwhile evening has fallen, with the mottled sound offered by a scratching needle the record spinning, we return to the pleasure of interminable tales and long-awaited laughter…

Around the brand Zucca a private audience is joined together, happily surprised whenever they come in the store and find themselves immerse in such uncommon assortment in European boutiques.

Always a Japanese production, backed by the A-Net group, affiliated with Maison Miyake that also has Tsumori Chisato and Plantation, Zucca can brag with its own path, by now for more than ten years, that testifies a consolidated maturity.

Cleaned by some decorative elements, perhaps a bit too Japanese, it is interesting to notice the skill with which details and particulars are introduced to enliven the quotidian, the dimension in which Zucca is best placed. His design is difficulty applied on big occasions, but instead interprets everyday life with careful diagonal seams, small asymmetries and prints that, together with the comfortable volumes and the use of color, allows the usage in any moment of the day without unpleasant slippages in the banal or, even worse, in the slovenliness. Zucca respects the even more hasty and concrete rhythms, speeds up the wardrobe, does not engage with exorbitant costs and cultivates discreet aesthetics, appreciated when they are so easily put on.

A tour around our Fall/Winter 2017-2018 selection, following the few minutes of our footage from the Paris showroom, can help one imagine herself inside heavy coats, from technical padded jackets to long coats in organic cotton, knitwear in its various weights, to printed dresses or decorated with georgette for the occasions that requires more femininity.

Maybe not everyone knows that before coming out with the line that now bears his full name, Yohji Yamamoto made his debut in 1972 with the Y’s. A possessive case strongly indicative of the paternity and affection feelings of the well-known Japanese designer towards his work and his young performance.

Y’s, in the true sense of ‘it belongs to Yohji’, could not then be considered today a second line, but instead an everyday alternative of the bolder stylistic codes reserved to the runway collections.

It is not a rare event that, in the wide Paris showroom in Rue Saint Martin, we find us facing the spoiler of choice between a fèmme piece or its Y’s similar, reflecting from time to time if privilege a more abstract and mature feminine interpretation or a more immature and practical one.

The final decision is usually commit to the more precise correspondence between shape, colour and composition, with the world evoked by the garment in question.

In the Y’s too, Yohji doesn’t scrimp on the involvement of distant artisans, last repositories of the rich Japanese textile heritage, and with extraordinary confidence and discretion leads these unmissable knowledges in refining the everyday life. Linen and cotton patchworks, gussets kept together by laborious stitchings, polka-dots spread on complex wideness, doubled fabrics, barely sketched and overlapped pleats, ad hoc placed darts, precise distribution of the empties and the voids, in a continuos, careful game around the details, the small particular, in order to confuse the position of dresses, jackets and knitwear, in two opposing worlds: one classic and conventional and the other more unpredictable and personal.

The effect is a displacement typical of Yohji Yamamoto’s trait, always in conscious and affected balance between the austerity and the unconventional.

Click here to see IVO MILAN at work at Y’s Yohji Yamamoto showroom in Paris.

The season sales could be boring, with the pedantic reappearance of garments already seen and maybe perceived, euphemistically, as leftover stock. But this is also the moment when the more relaxed rhythms allow us to go into and to share the vision of the choices still present in our shop.

In fact we are able finally to make available one of the film shot during the Paris Fashion Week, March of the next year, at Y’s Yohji Yamamoto showroom.

From the 1990′s, during the buying campaign, we got the habit to shot our selections. A supplementary work, which introduce itself in the complex activity of the seasonal buying, to start the comprehension of elaborate collections, often difficult, even for the mere fact of being very far and different from what the conventional channels usually show and advertise. This commitment, maybe not excellent from a ‘technical’ point of view, brings forward and allows to metabolize the garments that will be housed in the shop.

It’s a video heritage that not only will gradually compose our wide documentary archive, but could quietly insert itself in the present, to appreciate at their best garments, in many cases already part of the winter wardrobe of our customers, that are still available in our online catalogue and naturally at our shop in Padua.

Below, in sequence, the main characters, so to speak, the survivors of our video:

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto ‘Chanel’-like short jacket in carded polyester wool, acrylic and polyester, V neck, hooks closure, frayed cut raw edges, lined.

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto cotton poplin man shirt with sewn and laid on top panel staggered on a side on the breast, raw cut collar edges.

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto 5 pockets trousers in stretch cotton and polyurethane with side band in knitted wool, buttons and zip closure, belt loops, slim fit.

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto long sweater in plain knitted wool and rayon and wool parts, high neck in contrasting colour, a small patch expanding pocket with flap, soft fit, small band at the hem and on the cuffs.

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto 5 pockets trousers in wool gabardine with side band in knitted wool and polyurethane, zip and button closure, belt loops, slim fit.

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto big scarf in wool tartan with big polkadots print, fringes on the shorter sides, length 200 cm, height 72 cm.

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto cotton poplin man shirt with sewn and laid on top panel staggered on a side on the breast, raw cut collar edges.

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto 5 pockets trousers in stretch cotton and polyurethane with side band in knitted wool, buttons and zip closure, belt loops, slim fit.

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto dress in plain knitted wool with acrylic big ‘badly sewn’ polkadots, crew-neck, wide fitted at the waist line, bat three-quarter sleeves, two side pocket on the front, interesting to wear also with a belt.

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto 5 pockets trousers in wool gabardine with side band in knitted wool and polyurethane, zip and button closure, belt loops, slim fit.

Trippen black lace up shoes in vegetable-tanned calf leather treated with wax finish, wood wedge with para rubber sole.

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto white poplin dress and long waistcoat in knitted wool jacquard, raw-cut frayed edges, lace closure on the neck, two patch side pockets, closed on the front and opened on the back, wearable front/back.

‘Classic Trippen’ ankle boot in oiled suede cowhide leather with strings and small hooks, removable cork insole, rubber sole.

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto dress with wool jersey bodice and cupro and tencel neck, bottom and sleeves, shirt small neck collar, a vertical side small pocket, shirt-like cuffs with small buttons, wide fit.

Trippen black lace up shoes in vegetable-tanned calf leather treated with wax finish, wood wedge with para rubber sole.

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto padded pea coat in wool gabardine, trench style neck, press studs closure, wide bat sleeve, 2 side vertical pockets with zip, knitted fabric cuffs, trapezium line, adjustable coulisse at the bottom, reversible.

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto dress in plain knitted wool with acrylic big ‘badly sewn’ polkadots, crew-neck, wide fitted at the waist line, bat three-quarter sleeves, two side pocket on the front, interesting to wear also with a belt.

Trippen black lace up shoes in vegetable-tanned calf leather treated with wax finish, wood wedge with para rubber sole.

Oyuna padded pea coat in plain knitted cashmere, pin safety closure, cowl neck, dressing gown sleeves, two side vertical welt pockets, circle seams, reversible, available with agate lining.

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto baggy man style trousers in floral washed cotton brocade, button and zip closure, belt loops, 2 pockets on the front, 2 low big pockets on the back, adjustable back strap.

Trippen black lace up shoes in vegetable-tanned calf leather treated with wax finish, wood wedge with para rubber sole.

The Paris Fashion Week has just come to an end, and it is with great pleasure that we wish to share with you the spaces, previews, discoveries and friendships we experienced, which, over the years, have come to be the most intense moments of the season.

Thankfully, though the pace is brisk, it suits our insatiable and tireless curiosity, our suppliers, representatives and colleagues are all dear friends and, not least of all, the setting is that of the beautiful Ville Lumière.

It is an opportunity to display little known and even less talked about areas of fashion, far from the usual stereotypes that associate the fashion world with pomp and luxury. Here, in the middle, exists a very human experience, characterized by tireless experimentation and work with styles as yet little explored.

Daniela Gregis showroom:

Vlas Blomme showroom:

Comme des Garçons defilé:

Comme des Garçons showroom, with Madame Kiyo Hirano:

Junya Watanabe defilé:

Junya Watanabe showroom:

Yohji Yamamoto defilé:

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto showroom:

Penelope, Brescia, at Y’s Yohji Yamamoto showroom

Tatjana and Diana for Yohji Yamamoto:

Issey Miyake, defilé:

Karina, Issey Miyake

Issey Miyake showroom, with Giampiero Molteni, Tessabit, Como:

Rick Owens defilé:

Oyuna cachemire, showroom:

Katrien Van Hecke showroom:

Landscapes and friends:

Place Vendome

Municipal bicy

Natalie Doudous, Solis, Lione

Bernardelli, Mantova and Dolci Trame Blu, Carpi

…and Sari, the phographer!

Orlando Milan of  IVO MILAN, Padua, with Rosy Biffi of  BIFFI and Carla Sozzani of  10 CORSO COMO, Milan

Photographers in action

Overview of the Esplanade des Invalides

Showroom Rick Owens, 7 bis, Place du Palais Bourbon

Trading Museum Comme des Garçons, 54 Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré

Boutique Issey Miyake, 11, Rue Royale

Photographs by Sari Milan