Dress

This dress has four hoops incorporated into the skirt, but instead of being parallel to the waistline, they are slanted, making the skirt swell out in a distorted shape rather than a pure circle. A top fitted to the body is combined with this overstated three-dimensional skirt, and the composition is further augmented by circular sleeve-parts attached to the shoulders. The result is minimal, but visually rich.
Yamamoto described the most significant theme of his Autumn-Winter 1990 collection as questioning what is haute couture and what is prêt-a-porter (interview in the May 30, 1990 edition of the Mainichi Shimbun). He explained, "ready-made clothes are completed when the person who buys them actually wears them, so it is important that they have realistic value, but with haute couture, over eight-tenths of the result is already in the clothes, so there's no real need for anyone to wear them at all. If that's the case, then paradoxically, it's surely OK to attach triangles and squares. That's what I was trying to point out here." As a result, the season's collection protested the direction being taken by fashion at the time, with its increasing emphasis on quality, and the second half of collection consisted of creations like this dress with overlapping or folded parts cut into circles and other figures. The dress is a good example of Yamamoto's contemporary clothing, incorporating as it does the irony that Yamamoto has a profound respect and admiration for haute couture as the pinnacle of fashion.