When I was sorting through my documents recently, I found a copy of an essay given to me by Mr. Yohji Yamamoto during my tenure at Y's.

Taken from an essay by Ango Sakaguchi, known for his “Darakuron” (“On Decadence”), it was a copy of a page entitled "Cinema.”
It began with the sentence, "Film should not be art. If you peer at things through the lens of an artistic atmosphere, you'll never make a good film.” The words "film" were deleted from the sentence, and replaced by the word "design" in Mr. Yohji’s own handwriting.
“In creation, the most natural thing to strive for is (to be accurate). There is nothing else.”
These words, in parentheses, had been handwritten and underlined to indicate their importance.
“Just be honest and try to be accurate in your impressions." And, "Be subjective! I recommend having a strong subjective view.” The essay ends with, "Have a simple eye,” next to the underlined words, "be accurate in your impressions" and "have a simple eye.”

These words can be said to reflect a designer's attitude. When I read it over, the words still have weight.
After nearly thirty years of design activities, I suddenly find myself wondering, "What is design?" This article is one answer to that question. I also wonder, "Is there really a goal in design?

There were two times when I was asked to draw a design for the Yohji Yamamoto Collection Femme. The first time was less than a week after I had joined the company as a new graduate. The president (Mr. Yohji) called me in and asked me to draw a design, not a commercial one, but one that could be submitted to a design contest. He told me to work on just that for one week. Since no one from the school I graduated from had ever worked at Y's before, I had no information about the company, so I didn't know what it meant to be asked to draw a design. I gradually came to understand that at the Yohji Yamamoto Collection Femme & Homme, Mr. Yohji was the only one who drew designs.

I drew designs for one week, and on a good day I was drawing 90 designs a day. Every night, I would submit my finished designs on the president's desk and go home. In fact, I was so used to drawing designs that I was confident that I could produce results even if I had to draw all day, so the week went by uneventfully.

Nonetheless, even after the promised week had passed, I had not received any other instructions. I asked my boss about the situation and he answered, "If that's what the president ordered, keep working until he tells you to stop.” I was a bit taken aback by this unexpected turn of events, but of course I had no choice but to continue.

It was difficult to keep drawing with no end in sight, but what made it even more difficult was answering phones. While I was trying to draw a picture, sitting in my seat, naturally, I had to answer an outside line that was ringing in front of me, as I was the newcomer. It was the room used for the fabric project, so there were a lot of calls. In addition to the president's private office on the upper floor, there was also a seat for the president and a seat for the head of public relations, so there were many calls from important people. Once in a while, Ms. Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons would call the president, and during those times he could not be reached, so I was in a panic all day long. I would try to switch my focus and think of a design, but the phone would ring again. Hearing this over and over was much more difficult than I had imagined.

One month would pass before I was told to stop, finally freed from the grueling days of being forced to draw only design pictures. I wonder how many thousands of pictures I drew during that time?
Now that I think about it, however, I think that from the second half of that period onwards, the president wanted to see how far I could continue to draw new designs within my limits as a designer, rather than to see what I could draw.

When I first received the order to draw a design, Mr. Yohji gave me two pieces of advice: the first was that I should not scribble anything. The other was, "When you sit down to draw a design, sharpen your pencil, prepare a piece of paper, and start drawing. You are already at the bottom of the totem pole,” he told me. "At this point, your eye is tainted; unfocused. Hence, you will only come up with tainted designs that you have convoluted in your mind.”
“So what should you do? The only thing to do is to keep drawing.” he said. "Keep on drawing. Your body will remember and the pencil will run on its own, rather than thinking with your head. There is no other way to create a good design."
And for the second time, I imbibed the lessons of the Ango Sakaguchi essay. Now that I think about it, I realize that I saw the same nuances in the essay as I had the first time I read it, when I got the directives for the design work.

Last year, I watched a documentary about the production of the Yohji Yamamoto Collection Femme.
I was amazed because it was as if time had stood still, completely unchanged from the time when I was working there. Seeing the attitude of exploring new designs, the way of proceeding, the temporary fittings, I felt nostalgic.

Several top brand designers have been on the front line for a long time, for decades. I think that they instinctively realize that the only way to find the "answer" to their design questions is to keep trying. They realize that in the end, only by continuing to work can they see the finish line.

Isshi KANAMARU 2022.3