Yohji Yamamoto offered one of his rare appearances in New York for his new collection

Cities lend themselves very well to dystopian scenarios, as Netflix’s new hit, “Dark Matter“. Back when New York City architect and planner Robert Moses was working on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, he nearly succeeded in pushing through an expansion project that would have bisected SoHo at Broome Street. The neighborhood and the city would then have experienced a completely different destiny. And the building at 52 Wooster, on the corner of Broome, where Yohji Yamamoto’s new store has just been inaugurated, would surely not exist.

But thanks to New Yorker Jane Jacobs, the iconic artery has been preserved and is today a showcase of choice for the avant-garde Franco-Japanese brand, which is re-establishing itself in New York after an absence of more than a year. decade.

Thursday evening, in Manhattan, fans, journalists and influencers invited to the presentation cocktail of the Yohji Yamamoto and Yohji Yamamoto Pour Homme fall-winter 2024 collections were able to attend a rare appearance by octogenarian designer Yohji Yamamoto, who visited for the first times the store since its opening in September 2023.

The designer made a stopover in New York on his way back to Tokyo after his spring 2025 men’s show, which was attended by one of his favorite muses, actress Charlotte Rampling.

Yohji Yamamoto arrived as the party was in full swing and was greeted like the king of fashion and the legend that he is. A statue of an Akito dog, a nod to his own pet and the label’s mascot, guards the entrance to the store. He greeted it with a pat on the head. The crowd that thronged the long, brutalist-inspired space parted to let the designer pass through to a VIP area at the back.

Several people nodded at him, but it wouldn’t have been surprising to see someone bow. It’s not everyone who gets to see a fashion god in the flesh. Yohji Yamamoto hadn’t been to New York in nearly a decade, according to his house spokesmen.

Guests included French-Canadian actress and model Coco Baudelle, trap metal pioneer ZillaKami, Stevie Wonder’s son Kailand Morris, indie actress Sophia Lamar, designers Thakoon Panichgul and Elena Velez, and sculptor Misha Kahn. Everyone sipped champagne or ginger ale while enjoying chocolate brownies. Overhead, large screens showed the collections on a loop. This boutique debuts a new concept of retail for the brand, highlighting a “phygital” experience.

For the first time, a Yohji Yamamoto flagship will also feature the collection of the designer’s daughter, Limi Feu. She too was back in New York after a long absence: her last visit was nearly thirty years ago and she hadn’t really enjoyed it, struck down by the flu. This trip was therefore much more enjoyable, she recounts through her interpreter, but she still took the opportunity to spend time relaxing in her hotel room. Limi Feu’s designs retain an aesthetic close to that of her father, with a more street and rock’n’roll inflection.

The Yohji Yamamoto house was launched in Paris in 1981, with the presentation of a first collection in New York in 1982. In 1988, the label opened its first boutique in New York on Grand Street, renovated in 2005.

In 2010, the space closed (along with another location in the Meatpacking District) following a restructuring of the company after the designer declared bankruptcy in 2009. A new investor then came to the rescue of the brand.

Yohji Yamamoto, who boasts fans and muses like Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, Drake, a young Justin Bieber and Wim Wenders, has more than bounced back and has since collaborated with brands like Supreme, Playboy, Japanese baseball team the Giants and streetwear label Neighborhood. Partnerships that have worked very well.

They also made it possible to rejuvenate the clientele, just like the popular Y-3 Adidas project. Today, the brand also benefits from the nostalgia linked to the atmosphere of New York in the 1980s and 1990s, an atmosphere that would not have existed if Robert Moses had gotten what he wanted. At least one scenario that doesn’t end in disaster.