“Make haste slowly; do not be discouraged, but return to the work frequently,” said 17th century French poet and critic Nicolas Boileau.

For Yohji Yamamoto, the subject of the season was the shoulder, which he approached much like a Renaissance master would, making endless studies before a grand canvas.

Take the trio of all-black looks that opened his spring men’s show. At a glance, they were all elongated jackets with elaborately pleated sleeves attached by large grommets, worn over a loose shirt and generously cut shorts.

Subtle variations emerged from closer observation, setting the tone for a collection that unfolded like a sequence of experiments around proportions, constructions and even the absence of a sleeve. A further set jutted upward into peaks, yet another turned cocooning with inserts spliced into them. 

Given Yamamoto’s scholarly fluency in the history of dress, one couldn’t help reading this as an extension of his interest in 19th century fashions, an era that reinterpreted chivalrous ideals — and armor — into volumes and motifs.

With this lens, animal-inflected imagery and crosses read as new heraldic signifiers, while materials that ran from black wool and unbleached linen to laces and devoré velvets that revealed printed mesh echoed notions of male regalia of centuries past. Later on, knits painted in metallics or flashes of red evoked chain mail.

In this day and age, who’d refuse a bit of padding against the world at large, especially when tailored by the likes of Yamamoto?

But the cryptic-poetic messages printed on the back a handful of looks, speaking of quests for inner ghosts or a sense of elsewhere and nostalgia, hinted that the real battleground might be in each of us.

The cast, a Yamamoto-typical blend of striking faces and lived-in bodies, also hinted at refusing the constraints of a specific physique — or even a gender. Closing the show was jewelry designer Rie Harui, who serves creative director of the Yohji Yamamoto by Riefe line. Backstage, during the traditional good-natured jousting about what it all meant, Yamamoto said she was “important” both as a female model walking his show and as a designer.

Asked about the present moment, with climate catastrophe top of mind for the baking fashion week crowd, Yamamoto said it was “very comfortable, but at the same time…uncomfortable” and that even though the going gets hard, “you have to keep on living.”