“The only moment I am really happy is during fittings,” says Yohji Yamamoto, who today shows his latest womenswear collection at the Pompidou for Paris Fashion Week. “An emotion comes out. It’s the only reason I can continue to make clothing.”

In today’s film by Matthew Donaldson the Japanese designer explains how he fell into his career almost by chance. Yet, since launching his line Y's in 1972 (his mainline Paris debut followed in 1981), the avant-garde originator has risen to legendary status through trend-bucking and complexly tailored garments. Below we look at a trinity of Yamamoto’s muses.

Rei Kawakubo
Known together as ‘the Monk and the Nun,’ Yamamoto and Comme des Garçons founder Kawakubo were romantically linked in the 1970s, leading a new deconstructivist movement that turned conventional fashion on its head.

Charlotte Rampling
Perhaps embodying Yamamoto’s ideal of an independent and empowered woman, Rampling has often spoken of her devotion to his androgynous designs, and contributed to Rizzoli’s 2014 book Yamamoto & Yohji.

Pina Bausch
A close personal friend of the designer, the legendary German choreographer and Yamamoto served as inspirations for each other’s work until her death in 2009. 

Yohji Yamamoto’s FW15 womenswear collection at Paris Fashion Week shows today, March 6, at Centre Georges Pompidou.