Season after season, Yohji Yamamoto invites us into a dark, post-apocalyptic, and nostalgic world inhabited by antiheroes. His Fall/Winter 2025-26 collection, showcased today at Paris Men’s Fashion Week, stays true to this narrative.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s exciting when designers break their own molds. However, if it’s not broken, why fix it? Yohji remains Yohji: slightly chaotic, melancholic, and deeply rooted in functionality.

On today’s runway, models of all ages with disheveled hair donned thick, voluminous pieces designed for an existence under perpetual rain. Double-sided coats, trousers, jackets, and boots highlighted this vision. Alongside these, oversized tailoring made its expected appearance, a staple of his aesthetic.

Yamamoto isn’t disconnected from “what’s in vogue.” Like many brands and creative directors this season, he explored padded textures, adding tactile and visual layers to his looks. His garments no longer just feature his signature slightly bewildering prints; they emerge and can almost be felt.

Accents of blue, green, red, and white punctuate the otherwise muted palette, framing the urban lives of his archetypes. Some carry statements on their clothes that reflect the collection’s philosophy, with phrases like “Would you dance with me?”, “Despair is the conclusion of the fool”, and “Sadness and suffering are the flowers of life.”

With subtle details like studs on shoes, seemingly purposeless snap buttons, or multiple collars on a single shirt, Yohji Yamamoto challenges us to observe, not just look. He invites us to find the hidden beauty in the layers upon layers of fabric, each forming a spectacle in itself.