Orientalism and the Engagement with Fashion: A Look at Yohji Yamamoto

By Gianna Kim

Western perceptions of the East are drenched in a history of fetishization, commodification, and domination. The concept of the Orient and orientalism was then conceived with the Western hemisphere’s ego. Orientalism is essentially when Asian aesthetics are taken and subverted under a Western lens. It is allowed under the Western understanding that the East is submissive and passive and considered to be “conquerable” and inferior.

Connecting orientalism to fashion is typically thought out in the designs of clothing, which definitely is present in Western designers that border and fully are appropriation. This is beautifully discussed in the Elsewhere Zine where it touches on this blurred boundary of creative freedom and political correctness, and further examples of orientalism in fashion houses are shown in the example of Yves Saint Laurent pieces. What I want to grab at is understanding orientalism as a broader concept in Western thought and how it dictates the navigation of fashion collectors with Asian, here specifically Japanese, designers. 

Maison Margiela White Ankle Tabi Boots, design taken from Japanese work shoes/socks from 15th century

Orientalism engenders the larger idea that Asia is submissive, and therefore awaiting to be dominated by the West. Anne Anlin Cheng, a scholar with concentrations on the intersection of race, gender, and aesthetics, explains that “...orientalism is about turning persons into things that can be possessed and dominated.” Under Marshall McLuhan’s theory, clothing is an extension of oneself and defining oneself on a personal and social level, and so the concept of orientalism expands beyond the physical person towards representations of them. When collecting pieces, people aim to build an expansive collection and believe they have the right to do so, even when the building of a collection of clothes, likely to never be worn, goes against these Asian designers' philosophies shaped by their cultures.

In the building of echo chambers of archive fashion interests on TikTok and social media in general, the creation of content based on the expansive collections of archival pieces by Japanese designers started becoming a goal for this certain internet niche. Although engaging with these pieces are conducive to grounding archival pieces into contexts that they are simply clothes made to be worn, however this specific niche engages with these clothes in a way they are trying to devour and imprison the pieces as status pieces. This is an especially harrowing thought process towards clothing when designer philosophies that are shaped by the culture and society they have lived through are completely ignored in the desires of consumption.

One of my personal favorite designers, Yohji Yamamoto, has fallen victim to mindless consumption of his clothing. Orientalism affects it two-fold with both the uncritical consumption of his pieces and with the wearing of pieces themselves without understanding how rooted certain designs are to his interactions with Japanese culture and designs. The silhouettes and inspirations for Yohji designs cannot be separated from his cultural background, especially when seeing how he subverts societal and traditional clothing standards with a level of conservatism and fluidity in his works.

Yohji Yamamoto Spring 1999 Ready Wear (left) and Fall 2020 Ready Wear (right)

In an interview with the Business of Fashion, Yohji Yamamoto speaks about how designers in the present day need to interact with clothing beyond the internet and observe real and raw beauty. This advice towards budding creatives is pertinent towards his attitudes with clothing and designing. It showcases a larger desire for clothing to be seen in the real world and be worn to their fullest extent. It grabs at the idea that clothing is not simply meant to just be consumed, but to be enjoyed.

However, there have been too many instances of people leaving his clothes to stay in storage, hiding their beauty away from the world. Under the #yohjiyamamoto tag on TikTok, there are people showing off Yohji pieces that they admit they do not wear or are “collecting dust.” This is not an issue with only Asian designers, however there is an added nuance to the showing off and collection of pieces by Asian designers because of how orientalism swathes Western and Eastern interactions.

TikTok user @kevvin97 showing off Y-3 shoes and saying they are “collecting dust”.

TikTok User @imthedirector showing Yohji pieces where the audio is describing to show items they never wear

There is also an interesting layer to Western engagement with Japanese designers where they tend to pigeonhole these designers solely to Japan, which then leads to this obsession with them because they are Japanese. Yohji Yamamoto has stated himself, “European people love Asian sensibilities…But when a paper writes about me, they start with ‘the Japanese designer…’ We have to find a new vocabulary. I understand why European people take my creations as very Japanese,” in an interview with The Talks. When the Western world reduces designers to their ethnicity/place of origin, it is done so in a way where a certain aspect of superiority of the West needs to be established. It is similar to the idea when people say things like being “pretty for a [insert race] person” where here it implies that these designers are amazing designers for [insert race]. 

The issue of orientalism in the view of clothing extends beyond physical consumption, but how one goes about interacting with Yohji Yamamoto, and other Asian designer pieces on sites like Grailed and such, where people’s goals are to own and take simply because of the name, the ornament that this name brings. There is a deeper obsession with finding these pieces and showing people that they are in “the know” of Japanese designers that goes beyond simple appreciation of their work. 

Understanding consumption and its ties to social and racial factors is what it all boils down to. The nuances of how we consume and interact with clothing need to be explored critically or it will consume us. My greatest argument is that clothing is meant to be worn and cherished and I believe it will do society at large an injustice when the consumption of clothing is done so as a way to possess and dominate. Orientalism applied to this broader concept brings about a singular example in the interactions of race, capitalism, and clothes. Wear clothes to understand them and the grander placing that clothing contributes to this world.