Y-3 'Chapter-1' Spring 2023 Ad Campaign Review

Review of Y-3 ‘Chapter-1’ Spring 2023 Ad Campaign with Photographer Jiro Konami and Emily Okuda-Overhoff

In 2022, Y-3 boldly celebrated 20 years of memories, recoding key moments from the industry-defining partnership between Adidas and Yohji Yamamoto over the previous two decades. This season, the progressive brand triumphantly returns to usher in a new era, reimagining its foundations in order to look fearlessly ahead. Y-3 explores the concept of “Artisan Codes of Sport” for the first chapter of its Spring/Summer 2023 collection, disrupting elegance with a series of daring garments, footwear, and accessories.

Y-3 Spring/Summer 2023 Chapter 1 reinterprets the quintessential visual codes of team sports to celebrate a multifaceted design vision, continuing a lineage of renegade dynamism. Taking inspiration from Adida’s athletic heritage, the apparel and accessories collection includes letterman jackets, track pants, cargo pants, shirts, cardigans, caps, and more, all with brushstroke Y-3 logo graphics that subvert sporting codes through the lens of artisanal handicraft. Furthermore, a selection of tailored, elegant silhouettes completes the collection by fusing Adida’s sporting heritage with Yohji’s avant-garde legacy.

The footwear collection then features a curated selection of silhouettes that reinterpret the sporting codes of classic Adidas franchises through Y-3’s unapologetic rebellious lens. The Y-3 SUPERSTAR, Y-3 HICHO, Y-3 MARATHON TR, and Y-3 GAZELLE all feature accentuated tonal stitching – all threads intentionally hanging loosely – as a nod to the Japanese technique of Sashiko stitching. The Y-3 RIVALRY and the futuristic Y-3 RUNNER 4D HALO are two more sneaker highlights.

A campaign celebrating the roots and origins of Y-3 will be launched alongside the release of Spring/Summer 2023 Chapter 1. For the first time in the brand’s history, Jiro Konami and Emily Okuda-Overhoff shot the campaign in Japan, offering evocative nods to the country’s rich legacy of street-style photography. The cast of models, each embodying Yohji’s rebellious spirit, is captured candidly in between a fluid set of dynamic movements that pay homage to the visceral Japanese dance form of Butoh as they travel from day to night through various locations across Tokyo.