It's said that humans can perceive up to 7.5 million colors. Whether there are truly 200 shades of white, we can't say for sure – but gray is likewise a color that defies simple definition, revealing countless tonal nuances depending on light, material, and perception. With "SHADES OF GRAY" as its theme, Graphpaper's Autumn & Winter collection explores this depth of gray – and YOKE has reinterpreted it through a collaborative capsule. Here, brand directors Takayuki Minami and Norio Terada discuss this kind of gray.

"From my perspective, it's like throwing out a theme and watching them riff on it." (Minami)

―How many times have Graphpaper and YOKE collaborated now?

Takayuki Minami (Minami below): How many has it been? Quite a few, right?

Norio Terada (Terada below): Yes. We first worked together in 2022, and since then we've done it once a year. Before that we had special orders, but…

Minami: Our current style began with Spring & Summer 2022.

―And now instead of a simple special order, it's more of a joint creation. How do you decide the direction each time?

Minami: Graphpaper always has a seasonal theme. Based on that, we ask YOKE to reconstruct pieces through their perspective. From my side, it feels like giving a prompt and letting them improvise with it.

Terada: (Laughs) YOKE also creates each season based on an artist, but for this collaboration, we reinterpret Graphpaper's seasonal theme instead.

Minami: It's the easiest method for us. Our production team loves it. Only Terada and his team end up suffering.

Terada: (Laughs)

―And this time you worked from the theme "SHADES OF GRAY", Graphpaper's AW24 concept.

Minami: That's right.

Terada: Coincidentally, this season we were already working with gray and charcoal ourselves. When I saw Graphpaper's collection, the tonal gradient was beautiful. I immediately felt, we can make something good out of this. While researching Alan Charlton – whose work inspired the theme – ideas started to appear quickly. This one came together smoothly.

―Which implies perhaps some past seasons weren't as smooth…

Minami: Isn't that every time? (laughs)

Terada: Pretty much (laughs). Usually we struggle quite a bit.

―When you struggle, what usually becomes the obstacle?

Terada: Well… hmm…

Minami: Go on, don't hold back!

Terada: (Laughs) Graphpaper's approach to gray often involves shadow, depth, subtlety – elements not always visible at first glance. YOKE tends to communicate visually through color and pattern. But for this collaboration, we gradually infused the theme into minimal, refined garments – without over-expressing it. I think that's why it worked smoothly this time.

―Very diplomatically said.

Minami: You don't have to choose your words so carefully (laughs). Even if you say something wild, they'll fix it in editing.

Terada: (Laughs) But actually, changes from the original sketches were probably the most we've ever done. When we tried inserting random gray blocks, the idea worked conceptually but fell apart as a garment. We consulted the Graphpaper team a lot.

―Great. Please continue.

Terada: We made a crazy-pattern gray coat using all different fabrics at first sample stage – and it came back like, this is unwearable… Each panel was a different shade and material, and the result was… something bizarre.

Minami: (Laughs)

Terada: The final Balmacaan coat looks like a simple charcoal gray at first glance, but actually uses five different gray fabrics. The tones only reveal themselves subtly when walking or opening the front. We also considered balance across the full lineup so that the collection visually forms deep / medium / light gray gradation when displayed together.

- YOKE for Graphpaper BIG COAT

Minami: Impressive.

Terada: Thank you (laughs).

Minami: I'd like you to take over my job.

Terada: But at first we made it far too obvious. The crazy-pattern mohair knit originally had much harsher gray contrast, so we toned it down until it blended. It doesn't announce itself, but each panel uses a different gray – four in total. We shifted the tones while keeping it genuinely wearable. This sample runs slightly compact; for production we've resized it larger, to Graphpaper proportions.

―In the sketches I saw beforehand, the grays were divided much more sharply.

Terada: Exactly. When we simulated it on screen, I thought it might work, but the actual garment was nothing like the image. It was a real "wait, what?" moment.

―Gray rarely gets to play the lead role. Building everything around it must be difficult, but refreshing.

Terada: It really is. Taking something that's usually a supporting player and making it the main subject. As a collection, I found it genuinely interesting.

―Which item was completed first?

Terada: The denim. It's the only item using Graphpaper's fabric. We made an oversized cut-off trucker jacket and wide three-pleat trousers based on our staples. From the moment we received the fabric, the idea came naturally.

-YOKE for Graphpaper CUT-OFF DENIM TRUCKER JACKET

-YOKE for Graphpaper 3PLEATED DENIM WIDE TROUSERS

Minami: It's an unusual denim that basically never fades. It's woven using gray heathered twisted yarn – appears simple, but it's quite extreme. I wanted something like concrete denim and after many tests, realized melange yarn was the only way. I love how it turned out.

Terada: I've never seen denim using mottled yarn before. Surprising no one had done it.

―Was this the first time you'd encountered a denim like this, Terada?

Terada: Yes. I thought, I've never seen a gray in this tone. And when I heard it was woven from twisted melange yarn, I knew I had to use it.

"Stare long enough and you drift into a dangerous zone." (Terada)

―In this collaboration series, a few styles always use Graphpaper's fabric, don't they?

Minami: Right. This time it's the denim. When we first talked about collaborating, we agreed it wouldn't be interesting for me to say, "let's change YOKE's clothes like this or that." That would be meddling, frankly. So instead I thought about how to genuinely merge the two. We usually build our clothes from the fabric up, and in my mind about seventy percent of the design is finished at that stage. So I thought it could be interesting to take the fabric that most embodies the season's theme and let YOKE give it a shape. And for areas where YOKE excels, like knitwear, it made sense to leave those entirely to them.

Terada: That's how it went.

Minami: That's how it started – and now I just hand it all over.

Terada: Not at all (laughs). But once the theme and intent come across, it's really just a question of how to shape it. As for the fabric, every brand inevitably ends up with some left over, and being able to use it rather than waste it feels good. Nobody loses out – that made complete sense to me, and it was something I wanted to do from the start.

Minami: And then there's the nubuck on this coat.

YOKE for Graphpaper COW NUBUCK LEATHER CAR COAT

Terada: Our classic car coat shape, but usually in full-grain leather. Inspired by Charlton's satin-like matte works, we wanted a quiet gray – not shiny, not rough like suede. So we chose nubuck, dyed specifically for this project. It's the darkest gray in the lineup; the long coat uses a lighter shade.

―And there was a striped knit in the sketches as well?

Terada: Yes. Using kid mohair, we built a six-color gradation stripe. Usually we blur boundaries, but here we added a light gray line to make the transitions crisp.

YOKE for Graphpaper BRUSHED MOHAIR BORDER SWEATER
Detail of the stripe transitions

Minami: A lot of YOKE customers come looking for knitwear, don't they?

Terada: They do. I wonder why (laughs). But we put real effort into knitwear from the very first season, so perhaps that became the face of the brand. For this stripe, we wanted the look of the pile bunching up the way it does on vintage pieces, so we brushed the surface first and washed it afterward – deliberately the reverse of the usual order.

―I see. Seeing this many variations of gray lined up is quite something. It really is a deep color.

YOKE for Graphpaper – the range of grays

Terada: Especially in knitwear, finding the slightly off gray was difficult.

Minami: Every collaboration ends up like that. Outsiders must think, what's the difference?

Terada: Stare long enough and you start thinking, something feels off… A tiny shift ruins it. The deeper you go, the more insane it becomes.

Minami: I know the feeling.

―So not necessarily smooth after all (laughs).

Terada: The knit was re-sampled three times. This is the fourth. If the contrast is wrong, it becomes unwearable.

Minami: I knew you were putting effort in, but I didn't realize it was to this extent.

Terada: We can't put out something weak. Not in collaboration like this.

Minami: Now I feel guilty. Let me buy you dinner.

Terada: Gladly (laughs).

Release Date
Saturday, December 14, 2024, 12:00 -
Available in-store & online simultaneously

YOKE for Graphpaper
View all items available online

Norio Terada
Born in 1983 in Chiba Prefecture. After graduating from Bunka Fashion College, he worked in production and planning at several companies before going independent. He presented the first collection of his own brand, YOKE, for Autumn & Winter 2018, and recently opened the label's first flagship store in Kita-Aoyama, Tokyo.

Text by Rui Konno