Repetto and Yohji Yamamoto’s Third Collaboration Hits Paris Shops

From the runway to the till

Repetto and Yohji Yamamoto have dropped their third collaboration on 14 September. Yamamoto reworked Repetto’s Bolchoï pointe-inspired shape into a ballet flat-loafer hybrid, first seen on his Paris runway in March. The retail colours are cherry red, black and metallic silver.

The pairing makes industrial sense. Repetto owns a French ballet grammar. Yamamoto owns an austere Tokyo-Paris line. Together they sell a shoe that can leave the studio and still look like fashion.

A small object with a long week ahead

Paris Fashion Week is still two weeks away, but September product drops are how houses warm the city. Department stores and Left Bank windows will treat the silver pair as the photograph and the black pair as the seller.

Craft as campaign

French fashion’s current argument is savoir-faire against speed. A ballet house and an avant-garde designer making a hybrid shoe is that argument in one box. Whether it changes how women walk through Paris is a different test, due on the pavement from today.