This collection marks the 10 year anniversary of Y-3, a collaborative line between fashion genius Yohji Yamamoto and Adidas. Fashion and sportswear have often found themselves on opposite sides of the same argument...
This collection marks the 10-year anniversary of Y-3, a collaborative line between fashion genius Yohji Yamamoto and Adidas. Fashion and sportswear have often found themselves on opposite sides of the same argument: how best to dress the body for its daily endurances. To have one of fashion's most reputable masters of avant garde re-imagining one of the most ubiquitous sportswear labels in the world is ambitious, but the two have shared a similar goal in redefining our relationship to garments. Yamamoto's billowing black and exacting cuts explore structure, expanding silhouette and perceptions of the body moving inside of clothes. Adidas consistently develops and engineers innovations not only in higher functioning tech fabrics for athletics but in street style and brand reinvention across many different planes. "About 10 years ago I found myself becoming too far from street so I wanted to go back to the street," says Yamamoto. "I was especially inspired by people walking and wearing sneakers, so I wanted to make a sneaker brand." Those Y-3 sneakers were widely and rabidly popular, selling out worldwide and proving that this particular combination of sport and fashion was creating something interesting.
"To have one of fashion's most reputable masters of avant garde re-imagining one of the most ubiquitous sportswear labels in the world is ambitious..."
When Dirk Schönberger came to Adidas two years ago, he was appointed the creative director of the Sport Style division and coming into Y-3 years after the two companies had already been collaborating. "I was there when they showed it for the first time in Paris and I thought it was an amazing experience and an amazing collaboration," says Schönberger backstage after the show. "Two very different partners from two very different worlds come together and do something, I like this collision thing. When i joined the company I was very surprised that it still is very fresh, that it's not something that became a routine and kept on going and going, as well as from the Yamamoto company. We are challenging each other and I think that's very positive."
The anniversary collection calls on the brand's history and signature symbology, incorporating elements from both companies and how they've grown together over the years. "In the first place we were looking back 10 years, to what was the essence of the first collection," says Schönberger. "It was about the Japanese prints and the tradition of Japanese painting and then, at the same time, very bold sportswear very bold three stripes, black and white, something that comes very much from his culture of the black and white contrast. We looked back and I thought let's look at this core, let's look at the sport element and then give it a very timely, very new update."
Text by Paul Wagenblast
