A new book gathers previously unpublished Yohji Yamamoto sketches from 1981 to 1999, with original drawings shown at a Paris launch event.
Before a garment reaches the runway, it exists as a line, a proportion and a series of decisions. Yohji Yamamoto Drawings brings that working stage into view, collecting previously unpublished sketches made for the designer’s womenswear and menswear collections between 1981 and 1999.
From the archive to the page
During Paris Fashion Week, Yohji Yamamoto presented the book at the brand’s Cambon Street store and displayed original drawings from the archive. The pages span the period beginning with Yamamoto’s Paris debut, offering a look across nearly two decades of collection work.
The drawings are valuable not only as images but as records of how ideas move toward clothes. Their proportions, silhouettes and annotations show fashion in formation: less a finished look than a visual tool for thinking through shape and construction. Seen together, the sketches connect the designer’s distinct line to the practical process of making a collection.
Why the working page matters
Fashion histories often preserve runway photographs and finished garments. A drawing book shifts attention to the decisions that precede them. It lets readers compare silhouettes across years and notice how a designer revisits volume, drape and the relationship between body and fabric.
For students, collectors and anyone interested in design process, the archive offers a different way into Yamamoto’s work—through the marks that helped turn an idea into a garment.
Source reporting: FASHIONSNAP.
Lead image: AI-generated editorial illustration; it does not reproduce the book’s drawings.