The resulting images, among them, Susie [Bick, now Cave] Smoking (in black), Naomi [Campbell] Dancing (in kimono red), continue to find their way onto other fashion creatives’ mood boards more than 20 years after they were first seen.

“Yohji was always smiling and so sweet as a man, a pleasure to work for,” Naomi Campbell says. “I loved the clothes. We all – every model – had individual dresses, and it was very precise how you had to put them on. Back then I was like, ‘I would never be able to put this on by myself.’ I think I might be able to now. There’s a quality to it, to the way it lies, the craftsmanship is so exquisite, so perfect. The clothes are so intricate and yet simple, too, somehow – just unique. I remember jumping over and over, twirling the coat for Nick when we shot the campaign in Paris. It was a delight. I was a black model working with Nick Knight doing Yohji Yamamoto advertising in the 1980s and that was a big deal. I have really good memories of working with Yohji. I saw him in Tokyo a few years ago and it was really lovely – the same lovely, warm smile as always.”

“Marc Ascoli and Nick Knight were in charge,” Susie Cave remembers. “I was just there as a model. Susie Smoking was in no way arranged, rather it was a fleeting and unselfconscious moment, where I lit a much-needed cigarette and Nick took the photograph. But the atmosphere was palpable. We were deep in the zone. That happens sometimes with great photographers. You just lose yourself to their genius. But it was not difficult to find that moment when I was dressed in the most beautiful Yohji Yamamoto clothes.”

“Fashion communications culture, which we entirely take for granted now and, in fact, increasingly over the past 20 years, was relatively non-existent 30 years ago,” says Peter Saville, who designed the Yohji Yamamoto catalogues between 1986 and 1990 and again for Spring/Summer 1992. In 2014 he was responsible for the prints for Y-3, the line Yamamoto designs for Adidas. This was launched in 2002, making it the first major designer-sportswear collaboration. The graphic designer called this later collection Meaningless Excitement; it was printed with ‘meaningless’ words and slogans – a brave commentary on the banality and oversaturation of fashion and popular culture more widely. “Yohji invites you to work with him and waits for you to do that work,” Saville continues. “He doesn’t say what he wants, doesn’t give a brief. He has chosen you because he has chosen you, for what you do, and who you are. So then he steps back and lets you be who you are.”