I had experienced a hard time as I couldn't create freely. After graduating from a fashion college, I started to work for Yohji Yamamoto as a designer. The job wasn't to design on paper but to actually put the fabric on a dummy, drape and cut it, create a pattern, sew and make a toile, and show that at a fitting.Drawing only would have been okay with me but making it three-dimensional definitely demanded a high degree of professional skill, which was beyond my ability and more than I could deal with, considering that I had just graduated from college.The worst thing was that I had to learn and do this all by myself, with the sole use of my eyes and sensibility. In the long run, I spent all my time at work, feeling tortured for three years. Under those circumstances I was inevetably going to be fired, and eventually the words I got from Yohji were "I have a very good friend in Boston, why don't you go work there?".

The company called Alan Bilzerian, named after its owner, was located on the most fashionable street, in front of the Ritz-Carlton and just next door to Cartier. Alan ran a shop and was also selling his own label. I started to work at his studio on the third floor. In spite of what had happened in Tokyo, I worked hard without looking back.And I learned to speak English a little. On the fourth floor, there was a room where his staff adjusted clothes for his customers. When I walked through the room, I noticed a familiar piece that was hanging on the wall.It was one of Yohji's dresses. It was one of the main pieces of the collection he had presented in Paris that season, an asymmetrical dress which was finished perfectly in every detail and created by Yohji himself. It stood silently with its perfect and proud beauty. I looked at it for a while, longing for it, and eventually asked Maria, who was in charge, what the problem was. She answered that she was supposed to transform this into a sleeveless piece because the customer didn't like the design of the sleeves and wanted them removed.For a moment my ears couldn't believe what they were hearing. I was stunned by those words and, surprised as I was,couldn't even answer at all. When I got out of the room and started walking down the stairs, I coudn't help laughing. Surrounded by the idea that creation was a search for ultimate and simple philosophical beauty, I was completely inhibited by that thought and couldn't create freely. The dress that is supposed to be ultimately beautiful can easily be changed by a customer's personal taste.In a flash, I pictured the Japanese staff who were so absorbed by their work and struggled while rubbing their sleepy eyes, and I thought that they could never imagine such a situation. I giggled. And in a blink, that sensation of threat and the fetters that forced me to think it difficult split right in two making a sound and disappeared.My eyes were filled with warm tears. After that day, I started feeling comfortable in my body and in my mind, and managed to create freely. After those three years, I went back to Yohji's company in Japan and I could magically create, doubting having ever had these past hard times.

Years have passed, times have changed, and nowadays in Japan, designers who create philosophically have dropped in number. But there is my starting point and still now I keep in my mind and in my heart the words that Yohji once said: "It may be complicated to design but it's worth struggling to create", as well as Perry Ellis' words: "Fashion might die if it is too serious".

Isshi kanamaru 10. 2011