Bustier
Yohji Yamamoto has engaged in extended exploration of the relationship between clothing and the body. With this bodice, he inverts that relationship, creating an external ribcage of plastic boning wrapped in black silk crepe. Beginning with his influential collections of the early 1980s, Yamamoto has advanced a notion of beauty that challenges the figure-conscious Western ideal by obscuring the body under layers of unstructured garments. Transforming the corset from supportive underwear into sculptural, decorative outerwear that stands away from the body, and pairing it on the runway with a loose, flowing jacket and trousers, Yamamoto denies the garment its traditional function of reshaping the female form.
Artwork Details
- Title: Bustier
- Designer: Yohji Yamamoto (Japanese, born Tokyo, 1943)
- Date: fall/winter 2006–7
- Culture: Japanese
- Medium: silk, wool, plastic
- Credit Line: Purchase, Funds from various donors, by exchange, 2015
- Object Number: 2016.53
- Curatorial Department: The Costume Institute
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