Last year’s Yohji Yamamoto POUR HOMME x NEIGHBORHOOD collaboration, as the kids say, slapped seriously hard. So the fact that the designer and the OGs of Japanese streetwear have reunited for a second bite of the hype cherry shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.
Yohji, who earlier this year reopened his New York flagship back in September after almost a decade out, has more or less continued where he left off with NEIGHBORHOOD by once again instilling his rebellious design aesthetics onto everyday staples.
Similar to the pair’s debut collection, Yohji Yamamoto x NEIGHBORHOOD isn't exciting to look at initially, but give it a second.
Yup, there’s T-shirts, denim pants, hoodies, and jackets, sure, but dig a little deeper and take a moment to breathe in each piece, the tweaks, and the typically Yohji-fied design notes and you’ll begin to understand the collection’s relevance.
Take the MA-1 jacket, for instance, which might look like an ordinary bomber jacket at a glance, but concoction of materials, its partly deconstructed nature, and the anything-but-quiet co-branding elevates it to more.
That being said, while the beauty of the apparel is in the details, the real stand-outs (aside from the MA-1) are the two collaborative incense chambers, both of which are a skeleton man flipping the middle finger.
That, though, is about as wild as it gets. And while the collection on the whole might appear fairly elementary to some, to those who appreciate the inherently Yohji tweaks made to otherwise very ordinary NEIGHBORHOOD garments, it’s yet another Yohji masterpiece.
