Yohji Yamamoto
Japanese avant-garde, in scent.
Yohji Yamamoto is the Tokyo-based fashion house founded in 1972 by the eponymous designer, whose oversized, asymmetric, predominantly black silhouettes reshaped Paris ready-to-wear after his 1981 debut and remain a touchstone of Japanese avant-garde design. Fragrance has come and gone from the catalogue depending on the licensing partner. The original perfume line launched in 1996 with Yohji, a fruity chypre by Jean Kerleo, followed by Yohji Homme (Jean-Michel Duriez, 1999) and a second generation of Yohji Yamamoto Femme and Homme by Nathalie Feisthauer and Jean-Pierre Bethouart in 2004. The line was discontinued amid financial difficulties in the late 2000s and reissued from 2013 under licence with I.F.D./Alkor Group. It suits a wearer drawn to the Japanese designer canon — Yamamoto, Kawakubo, Issey Miyake — who treats scent as part of an austere wardrobe rather than a statement on its own.
DNA over time
Each column is an era. Each colored band shows that family’s share of accord weight across every perfume the house released in that window. Bigger band = the house leaned harder on that family.
