Born in Tokyo, Yamamoto graduated from Keio University with a degree in law in 1966. His mother was a dressmaker who had a shop in in Kabukicho (an amusement and entertainment district in Tokyo’s Shinjuku). After graduating, he realised a law career was not for him. “I didn’t want to join the ordinary society,” he told BoF. “So I told my mother after graduation...I want to help you.” Yamamoto’s mother agreed to let him work at her shop, saying he could learn from the sewing assistants. At her request, he also enrolled at Bunka Fashion College, now famous for training designers including Kenzo Takada, Junya Watanabe and Yamamoto himself. In 1977, he launched his debut collection, Y’s, in Tokyo.

After graduating from Bunka, he received a prize to go to Paris for a year, but it was back in Japan that Yamamoto began to discover his true voice as a designer. He set up a small ready-to-wear company that slowly acquired buyers in all the major cities in Japan. The success turned his thoughts back to Paris, and at the beginning of the 1980s Yamamoto returned to the French capital to open his first shop.