This year’s men’s fashion week in Paris saw the launch of designer and master-tailor Yohji Yamamoto’s Spring-Summer 2024 collection in a ready-to-wear runway show for the books. One of the key elements of Yamamoto’s latest collection is contrast; darkness contrasted with bright light, and traditional beauty with rawness.

The color palette pairs black textiles with shades of white and gray, with splashes of red in certain looks to symbolize blood in a statement alluding to needless violence escalating worldwide. Yamamoto’s famous tailoring skills shine through and highlight the element of rawness in his designs by creating an intentionally unfinished look throughout the collection. 

Featuring blazer lapels with raw edges, bits of spare fabric sewn onto certain pieces, and coats, wide trousers, and waistcoats with safety pins and stitches, the show perfectly captured the message of Yamamoto’s famous quote “I think perfection is ugly.”

Many of the garments also feature a variety of prints ranging from the blunt phrase “Oh you look ugly” on the back of a long coat, to images of Yohji Yamamoto’s own face. The prints were made to capture the varying art and architectural styles of different eras of history, inspired by contemporary art books all the way back to the Middle Ages.