It s a label that was built from the ground up, literally. Yohji Yamamoto s Y-3 line started with those perpetually sold-out, incredibly cool sneakers. Now in its second season as a fully head-to-toe collection, Yamamoto s collaboration with Adidas (the Y is for Yohji, the 3 for the triple stripe that trims the athletic brand’s classic shoes and tracksuits) is proving something that Venus and Serena Williams have been trying to tell us for years: tweaked properly, sports clothes can be fashion.
This season s collection was full of track pants that were tailored like trousers (miniature pleats and all) and black leather-and-wool baseball jackets, cut just slightly too large to be considered standard issue. The white-on-black Adidas stripes were twisted around pant legs and morphed into gold military-officer-style Vs on the sleeves of great toggle coats and slim black hoodies. Cargo pants, which we thought we d seen the end of after the Spring collections, looked entirely fresh—cut full from silky parachute fabric and cinched at the ankle to form a soft balloon shape.
And yes, there were brand-new trainers to lust after, this time in mirror-bright silver and glittery ruby-slipper red. Yamamoto said he was inspired by the young people who show up to work at his atelier every day in sporty street-chic clothes. No wonder, then, that the collection artfully summed up that hip-hop-meets-skater-boy-meets-old-school-prep aesthetic that fashion-obsessed under-30 types can t seem to get enough of right now.
