In 1978, Yamamoto sent one of his staff members, Atsuro Tayama, also
a graduate of Bunka, to prepare for his show in Paris. He first set up a
company, Yohji Yamamoto Europe S. A., and a store in Les Halles, a
shopping mall in the center of Paris. sheath bridal gown , All merchandise was imported from
Japan. Through a mutual friend, Tayama found a Japanese businessman
in Paris, Osamu Saito, who was hired as an executive to prepare for the
Paris collection. Yamamoto explains that it was his strategy to organize
his first show with Kawakubo in 1981 during the official Prêt-à-Porter
season so that the impact would be greater (in Tajima 1996: 587):
I convinced Ms. Kawakubo to do the show with me in Paris. She
was reluctant, but I finally managed to convince her. Japanese school uniforms . As a result,
the fact that we did it together in April 1981 made a big difference,
and it turned out to be very influential and powerful and gave an
enormous impact to the French.
In Kawakubo’s biography, Sudjic (1990: 53) explains that going to
Paris was a long-term investment, and Kawakubo knew it would cost her
a lot of money in the short term, but she was aware that if she was to be
regarded as a truly international designer she would have to go to Paris
as Western buyers and press were reluctant to make the trek to Tokyo to
see Japanese designers’ collections. Kawakubo brought five people with
her from Japan and hired five models for the first show in Paris in April
1981, at the Intercontinental Hotel. Neither Kawakubo nor Yamamoto
expected their shows to be that successful and to receive such wide
attention. Yamamoto’s former executive says:
His first show wasn’t all that successful, I don’t think. About a
hundred people showed up for the show. It was not an overnight
success as some people thought. After the first show, we were
approached by a famous French publicist. He was impressed with
Yohji’s collection and offered to handle Yohji’s public relations in
Paris. After that, his success was phenomenal.
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