I think that photo of Yohji signing on the board is a screen cap from Notebooks on Cities & Clothes? Was definitely one of the coolest things in the film.
This is actually one of the first things that really intrigued me about and attracted me to Yohji's clothing. The idea that there were proper parallels between Japanese culture and that found in West Africa is an idea that has fascinated me for a while and the fact that one could infuse those sensibilities into European-style dress, both subverting the original form and expressing something unique to one's culture is really exciting.
However, the actual living experience on the West coast of Africa has shown me that most people are not interested or even aware of this.
Our traditional attire is indeed cut looser mainly, but most West Africans have embraced the typical slim silhouette pushed by European & I guess American fashion designers. Traditional outfits are either restricted to ceremonial use or redesigned to be slim-fitting for daily use in urban environments. My mother's people for instance tie voluminous wrappers in raw silk and cotton around their waists, but you will rarely find any man wearing this outside of a traidtional ceremony and these same people would widen their eyes at someone wearing a comparable outfit (let's say hakama pants and a shirt or a Yohji wrap skirt and a jacket).
Anyone interested in fashion right now is wearing extremely fitted (or too small) suits, cropped pants and colorful socks. Most of this is inspired by the current trends in Brooklyn, NYC and some other places in the US pioneered by Black "neo-dandies". It's about colour, patterns and a sort of appropriation of what one could consider preppy outfits and pieces worn by predominantly white males. There's also the recent interest in using dutch wax prints to appropriate traditional objects for "African" use without any other design changes (for example the work of the NYC based Babatunde and his dutch-wax print baseball caps and umbrellas)
Most Nigerians for example find the idea of wearing black a lot pretty weird and in some cases scary. Associating the colour with witchcraft and all sorts of demonic activity - something with a very strong impact here in a country where superstition is rife and even highly educated people still believe in the power of curses and juju affecting their health etc.
I remember this one time I went into a gallery dressed as normal and the husband of the owner (a very highly regarded curator around here) began lamenting the lack of indigenous men's fashion designers that made clothes based on our traditional attire assuming I was a designer myself. I then started trying to explain to him some parallels between the cut of the Yohji pants I had on and that of some tribes in the country and he wouldn't listen to me .
It is pretty unfortunate actually, but the majority of our cultural heritage has been obliterated from our memory and survives only as costume or appropriated tropes that we now believe were originally our own - see dutch wax prints also known as "ankara prints" being equated with "traditional" Nigerian/African attire.
Most of our designers do not see the silhouettes and shapes that truly define different looks in our history or take inspiration from the little information we have regarding how our various people used to dress back in the day. If they did, they would see a lot to love in Yohji and early Comme and use the Japanese fashion movement as a great jumping off point for creating our own aesthetic.
The main people who go for Yohji Yamamoto tend to be the Sapeurs of Congo (and any enterprising West African interested in selling to them) like I mentioned a while back in response to that post originally made by Faust.
The Sapeurs and their entire manifesto are hinged directly on the acquisition and wearing of "high fashion" pieces and suits made by designers such as Yohji and Rei and Prada etc. The harder to find the better. The idea being that not only are they gentlemen living according to a code of conduct, but also a code of dress heavily informed by the tropes of fashion (particularly that pioneered in Paris). They have walk-offs and stand in particular ways to best show off the clothing they wear etc. Yohji particularly appeals to them not only because of the fact that he cuts a mean suit, but also because his clothing (particularly the runway clothing) stands out both in silhouette construction and details. I doubt any of them wear him because of parallels between his loose clothing and that worn traditionally by various West African cultures. I would even venture to say that these guys are trying to stay as far away as possible from what is considered traditional and re-invent themselves as Europeans even. There seems to be a bit of a backlash against this though, but I am not sure whether it has legs. YYPH cameo in the video at this link -
Here's another set of videos showing a bunch of sapeurs comparing their Yohji wardrobes .
To be fair, I doubt this video is very representative of the subculture, even if there are elements of peacocking and acquiring what someone else doesn't have, but yeah...
(you can watch the whole video, but the real action begins at the point I marked)
(this is a video response by another sapeur to the first one.)
Originally posted by MetroBulotDodo
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However, the actual living experience on the West coast of Africa has shown me that most people are not interested or even aware of this.
Our traditional attire is indeed cut looser mainly, but most West Africans have embraced the typical slim silhouette pushed by European & I guess American fashion designers. Traditional outfits are either restricted to ceremonial use or redesigned to be slim-fitting for daily use in urban environments. My mother's people for instance tie voluminous wrappers in raw silk and cotton around their waists, but you will rarely find any man wearing this outside of a traidtional ceremony and these same people would widen their eyes at someone wearing a comparable outfit (let's say hakama pants and a shirt or a Yohji wrap skirt and a jacket).
Anyone interested in fashion right now is wearing extremely fitted (or too small) suits, cropped pants and colorful socks. Most of this is inspired by the current trends in Brooklyn, NYC and some other places in the US pioneered by Black "neo-dandies". It's about colour, patterns and a sort of appropriation of what one could consider preppy outfits and pieces worn by predominantly white males. There's also the recent interest in using dutch wax prints to appropriate traditional objects for "African" use without any other design changes (for example the work of the NYC based Babatunde and his dutch-wax print baseball caps and umbrellas)
Most Nigerians for example find the idea of wearing black a lot pretty weird and in some cases scary. Associating the colour with witchcraft and all sorts of demonic activity - something with a very strong impact here in a country where superstition is rife and even highly educated people still believe in the power of curses and juju affecting their health etc.
I remember this one time I went into a gallery dressed as normal and the husband of the owner (a very highly regarded curator around here) began lamenting the lack of indigenous men's fashion designers that made clothes based on our traditional attire assuming I was a designer myself. I then started trying to explain to him some parallels between the cut of the Yohji pants I had on and that of some tribes in the country and he wouldn't listen to me .
It is pretty unfortunate actually, but the majority of our cultural heritage has been obliterated from our memory and survives only as costume or appropriated tropes that we now believe were originally our own - see dutch wax prints also known as "ankara prints" being equated with "traditional" Nigerian/African attire.
Most of our designers do not see the silhouettes and shapes that truly define different looks in our history or take inspiration from the little information we have regarding how our various people used to dress back in the day. If they did, they would see a lot to love in Yohji and early Comme and use the Japanese fashion movement as a great jumping off point for creating our own aesthetic.
The main people who go for Yohji Yamamoto tend to be the Sapeurs of Congo (and any enterprising West African interested in selling to them) like I mentioned a while back in response to that post originally made by Faust.
The Sapeurs and their entire manifesto are hinged directly on the acquisition and wearing of "high fashion" pieces and suits made by designers such as Yohji and Rei and Prada etc. The harder to find the better. The idea being that not only are they gentlemen living according to a code of conduct, but also a code of dress heavily informed by the tropes of fashion (particularly that pioneered in Paris). They have walk-offs and stand in particular ways to best show off the clothing they wear etc. Yohji particularly appeals to them not only because of the fact that he cuts a mean suit, but also because his clothing (particularly the runway clothing) stands out both in silhouette construction and details. I doubt any of them wear him because of parallels between his loose clothing and that worn traditionally by various West African cultures. I would even venture to say that these guys are trying to stay as far away as possible from what is considered traditional and re-invent themselves as Europeans even. There seems to be a bit of a backlash against this though, but I am not sure whether it has legs. YYPH cameo in the video at this link -
Here's another set of videos showing a bunch of sapeurs comparing their Yohji wardrobes .
To be fair, I doubt this video is very representative of the subculture, even if there are elements of peacocking and acquiring what someone else doesn't have, but yeah...
(you can watch the whole video, but the real action begins at the point I marked)
(this is a video response by another sapeur to the first one.)
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