NIPPONE MODE

PENELOPE’S Auction dedicates its first autumn sale to Japanese fashion, featuring three iconic houses of a visionary generation: Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake.

250 pieces celebrating experimental fashion and its relationship to the body, more conceptual than ornamental.

Japanese fashion is defined by a conceptual and deconstructive approach, breaking Western codes of dress and beauty. Architectural and sculptural, it transforms the silhouette into a construction, reinterpreting tradition with modern materials. By refusing ostentation, she has become a cult “anti-fashion”, forging a new elegance and having a lasting influence on contemporary design.

At Comme des Garçons, Rei Kawakubo – joined by Junya Watanabe – imposes a radical deconstruction: asymmetries, visible seams, dissonant volumes. Her dark palette and provocative designs blur the boundaries between beauty and ugliness, masculinity and femininity, luxury and brutality. Each collection is a manifesto.

Yohji Yamamoto develops a poetic minimalism: draped, ample, nuanced black. His clothes protect more than they reveal, drawing inspiration from the kimono and cultivating a nonchalant, resolutely “anti-fashion” elegance.

With Issey Miyake, textile innovation takes center stage: iconic folds, new materials, technologies. His universal creations sculpt movement, reconciling craftsmanship and industry in an optimistic, progressive vision.

All three share a rejection of Western canons, a deconstruction of silhouettes and a constant dialogue between tradition and radical modernity. Their arrival in Paris shook up the international scene, establishing Japanese fashion as a major trend.