V&A Yohji Yamamoto retrospective

The V&A is to host the first UK exhibition of Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto, one of the world's most influential fashion designers.The installation-based retrospective takes place 30 years after his Paris debut and will feature over 80

garments spanning Yamamoto's career. The exhibition will explore the work of a designer who has challenged, provoked and inspired the fashion world. The retrospective is designed by Yamamoto's long-term collaborator Masao Nihei.

"We never discussed or exchanged anything with him," explains Ligaya Salazar, the curator of the exhibition, on her blog. "We did what we wanted and at the end of each project it would be presented to him in Japan and he'd accept or refuse it. He never refused it."

The main exhibition space will feature around 60 womenswear and menswear pieces shown alongside a mixed-media timeline of Yamamoto's career. Further pieces will be exhibited on mannequins throughout corridors in the museum, alongside various treasures of the V&A, in order to create a dialogue with the rich history of work on display.

A provocative and challenging designer, Yamamoto was born in World War II Tokyo, in 1943. His asymmetric cuts and baggy designs were seen as shockingly unflattering at the time of his debut and directly challenged the bodycon decade of the Eighties. He was part of a new wave of Japanese designers, including Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake, who took Paris by storm with their new androgynous aesthetic. Soon they were celebrated household names.

The exhibition will run until July 10, with accompanying displays at the Wapping Project sites at Bankside (March 11 to May 14) and Wapping (March 11 to July 10).

Image: Yohji Yamamoto