Yohji in Paris

[Alicia]

PARIS (AFP) - Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto offered a collection focused on volume and full of playful details for spring-summer 2006, at the start of ready-to-wear week in Paris.

The veteran designer, who is a master in structure, clearly had fun dipping into the male wardrobe, taking the clothes apart and re-shaping them to come up with an elongated tail coat.

He added witty touches such as dinosaur-esque cut-outs teamed with an outsized man's shirt hanging over the jacket, and made cuffs and collars giant-sized.

Military camouflage was also revisited in a long-sleeved "kit" dress covered in folds of fabric and layered flounces, while tops had ribbons forming loops like cartridge belts.

In Yamamoto's beloved black, a dress had a hosepipe neatly rolled up and slung across the model's shoulder with an end twisting down the front; the pipe on the wedding dress ran inside the fabric to create an avant-garde crinoline.