Designer and artist Yoshikazu Yamagata has come up from the wayside to be one of the most celebrated representatives of Japanese fashion culture as art.
He is a creator and a teacher at his own fashion school, but it seems it has been a while since we had seen any fashion from him. In comes his new line “written by…” a contemporary answer to his experimental and goosebump-inducing ideas put forth in his writtenafterwards brand.
Although Yamagata is known for the craziness that is the “anti-fashion” fashion label of writtenafterwards, in 2014 he started written by as an answer to his own idea of wearable clothing. Ah mon dieu! It’s hard to imagine if you are familiar with his work, but sticking to menswear he has come up with a modern set of clothing that is both strangely simple…and simply strange, at the same time. The theme speaks for itself; “Fall and winter….sometimes Spring”
Yamagata is a graduate of Central St Martin’s menswear course and worked as assistants at Alexander McQueen and John Galliano before starting his own line Writtenafterwards in 2007. He has won numerous accolades, including 3 different awards at the ITS competition in Italy alone.
He also started a private fashion school “koko no gakko” (“this school here”) where he is teaching advanced techniques one-on-one to students who themselves go on to win a number of accolades abroad. Look out for more “written by” soon, ad skirt the space between crazy and calm.
