muses
SAYOKO YAMAGUCHI
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atracted new interest from Japanese designers, and the jobs lined up. Her look would become a proxy of Eastern beauty, representing every archetype from the geisha to Princess Kaguya (the “moon girl” from one Japanese folktale whose beauty commanded the devotion and deaths of royalty). According to fashion lore, it was Kansai Yamamoto, one of the frst designers to take Japanese fashion global, who frst appreciated Sayoko’s looks. It was Sayoko’s work, however, with Shiseido, Issey Miyake, and Kenzo Takada—modeling in their runway shows and campaigns—that brought her international acclaim. Kenzo’s clothes, especially, were an amalgam of Eastern and Western dress at the forefront of the avantgarde, and Sayoko would be the poster girl for his unique brand of worldly optimism, a beacon for diversity in a time when the word “Oriental” was still an acceptable catchall for everything Asian. By 1977, she was considered by Newsweek to be one of the top six models in the world.
Her visage, and ultimately her aura, immortalized by Pierre et Gilles, Noriaki Yokosuka for Miyake, Hans Feurer for Kenzo, and Serge Lutens for Shiseido, exists beyond fashion photography. Like other iconic models, Sayoko was as much a performer as she was a mannequin, acting out the clothes and their circumstances, imbuing them with a character of her own creation. Venturing into flm, Sayoko straddled the role of both fashion icon and cult movie star, acting in Kazuo Kuroki’s Genshiryoku sensô (1978), Shûji Terayama’s madcap Le fruits de la passion (1981), and Seijun Suzuki’s Pistol Opera (2001). She even served as costume designer for a 2002 ARTE-TV production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Though active until the end, Sayoko died of pneumonia in the summer of 2007 at the young age of 57. As we enter a world that is more and more connected, Sayoko’s legacy remains a compelling force and persona, a timeless talent of international appeal, a pioneer, a beauty without borders. jeremy lewis
© Pierre et Gilles: Bionic, Sayoko 1977
Refned, otherworldly, and yet quintessentially Japanese, she was, simply, Sayoko. A model, surely, but more than that, Sayoko Yamaguchi was an ambassador who brought Japan and its bounties of beauty to the rest of the world. Emerging on the global stage in 1972 at a time when fashion’s interests and participants grew increasingly international, Sayoko became the face of the Far East. When Issey Miyake and Kenzo Takada invaded Paris in the ’70s, it was Sayoko who held their banner of goodwill. Sayoko reconciled Western oversimplifcations of Asian beauty and bodies with Japan’s burgeoning modern identity. Born in 1949 in Yokohama, Sayoko Yamaguchi’s initial ambition to be a fashion designer was put on pause after she was conscripted as a ft model while attending Sugino Gakuen, a fashion design school. Shy and reticent, her modeling career started of without much event, but after a drastic change in appearance—she adopted a severe bob haircut—Sayoko