"Generally speaking, I am not interested in the future and don't believe in it. First, I guess it is true that I don't trust the future, but, more to the point, I don't even trust the 'myself' of tomorrow, nor, for that matter, of the day after. Basically, all I know, and all I am capable of understanding, is the "me" that is here, now, the "me" that has dragged his past with him to this point."
" . . . that for me is an author . . . someone who has something to say in the first place who then knows how to express himself with his own voice and who can finally find the strength in himself and the insolence necessary to become the guardian of his prison and not its prisoner." (X)
"I wanted to be able to escape in two hours. I didn't want to be trapped by gorgeous things, to have an attachment to anything, except maybe books." (X)
"My whole life is made up of: 'I'm sorry' . . . I feel like I have to apologize to people, to things, to life itself. It's like, 'I'm sorry to be here'. I don't want to disturb anyone. But in my work, in the clothes I create, I'm actually telling people that I'm here. So, I guess I'm disturbing them, after all." (X)
"I think perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion. If I can feel those things in work by others, then I like them. Perfection is a kind of order, like overall harmony and so on . . . They are things someone forces on to a thing. A free human being does not desire such things. And yet I get the feeling there are a lot of women who do not seek freedom; women who wear symmetrical clothes." (X)
"Many journalists kept saying, 'Yohji, why are you making such dirty clothing?' " he is saying, referring to the way his clothes come in many shades of black and can often look worn in, a little distressed around the edges. "But I was seriously thinking that those are beautiful compared to the established style of garment from other famous designers at the time. Dirty is good."
"I have been collecting so many secondhand clothes for 30 years," Yamamoto says. "Army uniforms are made with special thread, for certain specific reasons - for the fight, or for protection. Ordinarily you cannot order those types of fabrics. There is no ornament; everything is necessary." . . . There is an honesty about these clothes that he likes. (X)
"If fashion is clothes, then it is not indispensable. But if fashion is a way of looking at our daily lives, then it is very important indeed" (X)
"There is always an adoration for women in me which resembles the temptation I have for things that have passed me by. And so I can only see a woman as someone who passes by, a person who disappears. Therefore the back is important to me. I think clothes should be made from the back, and not the front. The back supports the clothes, and so if it is not properly made, the front cannot exist.” (X)
