For the young British-Japanese fashion design duo of Patrick Ryan and Mami Yoshida, the words yab and yum -- which, together as Yab-Yum, give their label its name -- are a good fit for this Tokyo-based team when you search out their real meanings.
Originally Tibetan, the words mean "father" and "mother," or the "harmony of male and female energies" -- and that latter meaning is especially appropriate for the fruits of the collaboration between French-born Briton Ryan and his Japanese wife and design partner, Yoshida.
"In my traveling days, when I went to India, I bought a beautiful book on Nepal, and the word yab-yum was written in italics and stood out for me," explains Ryan.
Only recently, though, Ryan discovered that a Canadian record label is using the same name -- while in Holland it is more closely identified with the harmony of male and female energies at a well-known Amsterdam "gentleman's club."
"There are many meanings: one is the unity of male and female energies -- I have a feminine side and Mami has a boyish side!" Ryan said.
Earlier this year, Ryan and Yoshida celebrated the 10th anniversary of their fashion label with a small party and retrospective at the Park Hyatt hotel. There, high above Tokyo, photographs documenting Yab-Yum's first decade and more recent artistic works -- including portraits of their twin daughters, Matti and Lula -- were on display.
The duo is a fixture of the Japanese fashion scene: Their funky little pieces, drawing inspiration from other parts of Asia as well as Japan, could not be more at home than here. For this season, traditionalism and style are to the fore, with Ryan saying that 1930s movies were a particular influence this time around.
"The styling will be inspired by '30s scandal pictures -- women hiding their faces because they murdered somebody. The clothes were utilitarian and elegant," he said. He added that Nicole Kidman in the film "The Others" -- set in the '40s -- was also an inspiration. "The scene where she is dressed in a black dressing gown with a shotgun is stunning!" he said.
Colors for the autumn/winter collection are very Japanese and very simple -- black or white -- but the palette does extend to slightly more rustic tones in the form of military khaki and brown tweeds.
"The silhouette is returning to the original neat, tailored styles of early Yab-Yum," Ryan said, although some pieces have padded shoulders which gives a sharper silhouette. While admitting to currently producing "many tailored styles inspired by vintage marine or military uniforms," Ryan said his "basic inspiration is color and natural materials such as cotton, linen, wool or leather."
Apart from all that, though, Ryan said, "My main inspiration is my desire for clothes that I want to look at or wear myself. I would never make something that I could not relate to or wear, and I am always encouraged when I see a cool, confident person who is wearing something different and who stands out in the crowd of commonly fashionable people. For me that requires a certain sense of narcissism and lust for a high-quality aesthetic."
Both Ryan and Yoshida are graduates of the prestigious Central St. Martin's College of Art and Design in London. After that, they spent the next four years working their way through various design houses -- including that of the legendary Jean Muir and Culture Shock in London, and at Guy Paulin in Paris.
Finally, after a spell with Kansai Yamamoto in Tokyo, they decided enough was enough because, as Ryan put it, "We caused revolutions wherever we went, and couldn't fit into any other [designer's] philosophy." It was then, in 1994, that they decided to strike out on their own, and despite an uphill struggle at times, they remain just as positive in taking Yab-Yum into its second decade as they felt at its launch.
Ryan says the single most important reason for their success is "the great respect we have for each other's cultures. That is the basic foundation of our success. I'm artistic, Mami is mathematical as well as artistic! Absolute belief in each other is our strength."
"The last decade has been hard because we are hated by most people we worked for . . . but I think they respected us in the end," he added.
In the fickle world of fashion, success is generally measured by market forces: whether stores the world over are selling a brand, or whether fashion magazines are zeroing in on certain designers. However, there's a flip side to this that applies to Yab-Yum, because a smaller label can be intimate, can have more cachet and aspirational appeal than those big brands favored by trendsetters in the media who must, of course, keep half an eye on their advertising revenues.
"Yab-Yum is in a genre all of its own and the whole point of it is to not fit into any popular style," Ryan said. "Even if our style becomes fashionable -- as it tends to -- we always try to offer an alternative. We are antiestablishment to the core -- which is the big paradox of what we're trying to achieve!"
Nonetheless, Ryan cites "snobbery" as the reason for Yab-Yum's two Tokyo stores being sited in quiet corners of Ebisu and Jingumae. "We feel it's better to keep passersby to a minimum. In some main fashion drags in Tokyo, stores are lying empty or going bust every day. Having boutiques off the beaten track, so to say, seems to work for us, but it's not easy."
Despite the pair's success with Yab-Yum, Japan is not the end of their rainbow. "I'd like to think that Yab-Yum is a fixture on the Tokyo fashion scene, but my ultimate desire is to design the Jean Muir collection in London," Ryan said. "She took me in when I was a young designer and she died in 1995. That's a regret that I'll have forever, but to have the chance to work under her name would give meaning to my career as a designer!"
