Civilian: When people think of you and your work, they think of black and an absence of colour. When you think of Tokyo, what do you think of?
Yohji Yamamoto: I see it as a mix of white and grey. It’s visually quiet. As a designer, I don’t want to be influenced by an interior or music, so I prefer to work in a very sober environment and the spaces in Tokyo are largely like that. When I am in Paris, if I am invited to a haute couture studio, I can’t imagine working within all that elaborate, traditional ornamentation. I lose my inspiration in that kind of space.
Do you see modern Tokyo as a global city, like New York and London, or is it more insular than that?
Like New York City, very few people who live in Tokyo were born there. It’s a city full of people from elsewhere. There’s a strong sense of civilisation here: everyone behaves well because they know that otherwise, it could all fall apart. At the same time, here I am living in the middle of the city, Minato-Ku, in the wealthy Minato district, and no one knows who is living next door to them. When people leave the house to go to the office in the morning, no one says say hello. It’s a little sad, but this is change. Tokyo was, once upon a time, like a village. We had a sense of community. We communicated with our neighbourhoods. If someone fell ill, their neighbours would take care of them. Now it always feels like someone else’s problem.
21st century Tokyo seems dominated by malls and international fashion flagships. What do you think of the way the city looks now?
The architecture of Tokyo is a mess. Because the city was destroyed by the war, there was no grand city plan at all, so anybody could build anything. On one hand it means total freedom, but Tokyo became scattered. In terms of the architecture, there is a strong sense of the architect’s ego involved in many new buildings now. Roppongi Hills and Midtown look like Disneyland. I quite like the Shin-Marunouchi building, in front of Tokyo Station, which is tall and silver. But it’s full of restaurants and shops and I hate them all.
You hate them? But isn’t fashion and your business based on retail?
There aren’t really any shops I like in Tokyo. Japan is such a small island, so when you want to open a new store on the streets, you have to sell diamonds to pay the rent. Young fashion designers have no chance to have their own selling space and their only chance to operate as a business is to sell in department stores. All of those are occupied by European brands, and all of them are the same. Then there are the antique shops. The things are beautiful and I understand their value and quality, but at the same time, I feel ambivalent: those things used to be used by ordinary people in the old times, and they were once cheap. Maybe it’s just that I’m not a very good collector of anything. I feel that when you have property, you are a prisoner to it. I prefer freedom, not having anything.
But then you do have at least one single indulgence – you drive a vintage Rolls Royce, don’t you?
Tokyo is the only city I drive in, certainly not in Paris. I could, of course, have a driver, but I have been driving for more than 20 years in Tokyo, so I know the routes very well, it feels like walking to me, and I love it. In Paris, with all that traffic, it’s a joke. About 25 years ago drivers became very civilised in Tokyo, and they drive very quietly and calmly compared to European people, which I like. It used to be so different. It used to feel like being stuck in a narrow street in India, with the constant sounding of horns.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Shinjuku, which was, and still is, a sort of amusement park for men. There’s a lot of violence and prostitution. It is not just edgy and “downtown”, it’s genuinely dangerous. Growing up there, I didn’t think anything of it – I felt it was natural. I remember when I was a junior high school boy, wearing school uniform, walking out of the house to go to school, and two policemen coming up to me and asking me what I was doing there. I was just going to school. But for them it looked very strange – a boy in uniform walking around an area like that, on his own. I felt so hurt by it at the time, as if it was somehow entirely wrong to live there.
And it’s still dangerous now?
Shinjuku is a deeply dangerous area, occupied by the Chinese and Korean mafia. Sometimes, when I feel nostalgic, I go walking around there, and I don’t hear a single word of Japanese spoken. Very few things are still there from my childhood, especially the area where I used to play, called Kabukicho – Kabuki Town. That was the most dangerous area. The local government had plans for a Kabuki theatre, so it was a huge vacant ground for a long time, but they never succeeded in building it. Still the name remains. And there’s a regular theatre there now, but no Kabuki. I used to go and see Kabuki at the Kabuki-Za in Ginza, which was demolished in 2010. Kabuki performers hold nothing back – their performances are entirely open, and they give everything to make the audience happy.
I grew up in Shinjuku, which was, and still is, a sort of amusement park for men. There’s a lot of violence and prostitution. It is not just edgy and “downtown”, it’s genuinely dangerous.
It’s often said there are elements of the kimono in your work. Do you think the kimono remains a valid and modern way of dressing?
The kimono could never compete with the arrival of European forms of dress. Western dress is all about convenience. You can be active. To wear a kimono you need to have training. It’s one of many examples how, after losing the Second World War, Japanese families lost family and cultural traditions. Because of the United States Army we were pushed to accept a so-called democracy that we didn’t truly understand. Equality was everything – so young people started not respecting old people. And then children stopped respecting their parents. The fabric of society was broken. Traditional Japanese education is disappearing. Japanese people became too Americanised. Sometimes when I fly to another city in the winter, I’ll be stuck next to an American fat guy in shorts and a T-shirt and I just can’t bear it. And America is so strict about everything. No smoking anywhere!
So is the death of traditional Japanese culture inevitable?
There are a few people who want to protect tradition and notions of respect, and some of them have started collecting kimonos. But the numbers are small. And the kimono is just one example of what’s been lost; I could also talk about kabuki and sumo. To see kimonos now, you have to go to a museum in Kyoto, or the Hotel Okura in Tokyo. But in Tokyo it’s a performance, part of the interior design and style of service.
What about sumo?
I have different feelings about sumo. I find them ugly, too fat. I see them as “beyond form”, which I don’t like. In the Edo period, it was a street performance. I often see street performers in Paris and sumo was, originally, like that. It started as a kind of travelling performance. I prefer the underground theatre which dates back to the 1970s, when Juro Kara was working. His Red Tent Theatre Company used to put on new productions in the garden of a shrine in front of Shinjuku station, and you’d only hear about it by picking up flyers left in cafés.
Tokyo has, in the last few years, become known for its Michelin-starred restaurants. Is food a big part of your life in the city?
A few years ago I had a disease of the stomach, which my doctor thought was from stress. I took Chinese medicine twice a day, for two and a half years, and it worked. But now I am very careful about food. I prefer light meals. When I am in Europe, and I receive an invite and see the words “dinner party” on it, I get nervous for the whole week leading up to it. I don’t like anything heavy. French food is impossible for me. And Michelin has given so many stars to restaurants in Tokyo that I am too lazy to go to. Sometimes in famous Japanese restaurants, the owner is arrogant, which I hate. I like Japanese family-style cooking restaurant, which has a nice easy feeling. I go to Narukiyo in Tokyo, where they cook the rice in a very nice way.
So where would you take someone for a meal if they were visiting from overseas?
Where I take someone for dinner depends entirely on the person. In the past, when Elton John has visited Tokyo, I have taken him to Heaven’s View, on the seventh floor of the Barbizon Building. It’s a small place that I can have closed down, just for us, and Elton’s bodyguards. You can order anything there. If you feel like having Japanese you can ask the chef for Japanese. I didn’t really discover the restaurant, I was kidnapped by the owner while I was eating somewhere else.
Do you feel a part of the “fashion world” in Tokyo?
I don’t like to be surrounded with fashion people. I like to go to parties – in Tokyo or Paris – that aren’t very formal, where you can meet lots of different types of people and have strange conversations. I like to mix with writers and artists. And I don’t like formalities. In America they can be very formal, where they want you to wear a jacket and tie. I made a decision a long time ago that, as long as I live, I will never wear a tie. Not even for my Emperor.