Womenswear Daily

Photo: John Bright

Writing: Ron Cohen, J.D. Kidd

Published by Womenswear Daily

A New Angle

NEW YORK — There's lots of fanfare right now for Japanese designers. Some are already proven; others are getting new nods and raves from retailers, and many are exhibiting for the first time in New York at the Japan Fashion Fair.

Yohji Yamamoto has taken off for fall at Charivari. Owner Selma Weiser feels he is the most innovative designer to come along in years: "His details and structure are just wonderful." Incorporating form and function, Yamamoto sculpts and details his jackets, shirts, and pants with an array of angles and layers.

Among Charivari's best fall sellers are the split-level jacket and matching black wool contoured and cropped pants, above.

Tokyo Fashion Houses Draw U.S. Retail Interest

A group of Tokyo fashion houses, whose names are barely known in America, are attracting mounting interest from forward-thinking U.S. retailers. (...) Most of the designers are in their mid to late 30s and have been working for a decade or more.

At Y's, designer Yohji Yamamoto is a slight 37-year-old with stringy black beard and twinkling eyes, who does his 500-piece collection for boutiques and franchise stores in Japan as well as for an outlet at Les Halles in Paris. He runs Y's with an old boyhood friend, Goichi Hayashi, and the firm does about a $15 million annual volume. Hallmarks of his fashion are simple lines, natural fibers and somber colors. "When I work with bright colors, I get bored in two hours,"

Yamamoto says. Y's is aiming for American business with specialty stores because it wants to expand slowly and have control over the merchandising. Charivari has a New York exclusive for fall-winter, but the firm is talking with other stores for spring.

In Japan, Seibu, Isetan, and Mitsukoshi stores all carry Y's. As to fashion message, Yamamoto can't quite define it: "I was thinking I was New Wave maybe a few years ago, but I'm too old for that now."

At Comme des Garçons, founder Rei Kawakubo designs avant-garde apparel, which is expected to sell in New York at prices comparable to Giorgio Armani. Comme des Garçons claims fall-winter sales to the U.S. of almost $80,000 and says spring-summer business will be at least that, and probably triple. In Japan, the label does about $20 million yearly through more than 120 franchise shops and boutiques. Barney's wanted a five-year exclusive with the line in New York, according to Takashi Kurihara, an executive of Comme des Garçons, but the store didn't get it, with Bendel's also buying the line this season and others expected to move with it in the spring.

These houses, though, are concerned a bit that this spate of American store interest is only a passing fad, or perhaps a coattails effect following the established success of other Japanese name designers. "It's a Japanese boom right now," Yamamoto says, "like the tourist season." If the boom is to be sustained, they acknowledge, these houses will have to develop some solid production and export departments.