For most of his lengthy and impressive career, Yohji Yamamoto has been aligned with design s avant garde: influential, admired and respected, but never what you might call a big commercial success. Then, a few years ago, footwear giant Adidas asked Yamamoto to design some sneakers. And to almost everyone s surprise, the limited edition (50,000 pairs worldwide) sold out in no time. So earlier this year, Adidas cemented its relationship with Yamamoto, naming him creative director of a new apparel division, Y-3, that the company claims has the potential to become a $300 million business.
For the label s debut collection, Yamamoto sent out men s and women s looks that focused on sober, simply cut, well-proportioned separates, all ornamented with some variation of the Adidas three-stripe logo. While these clothes might have an athletic heritage, they re not all meant for the body perfect; trousers were fluid, T-shirts and dresses grazed the body and jackets hung loosely from the shoulders. If Adidas s predictions come true, the mainstream is about to get a lot better looking.
