“We’re really going back to our roots.”
It’s a phrase we hear often in fashion, but it holds no cliché when uttered by Yoon Ahn. Since the designer and her partner Verbal reacquired ownership of Ambush in April last year, the duo has shifted the brand’s production back to Japan to have tighter control of the quality and, in Ahn’s own words, the opportunity to “be more real”.
She had been reading Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés’s 1992 bestseller about reconnecting with an instinctual female power. In Ahn’s home of Tokyo, the tension between the expectations of society and the pull of nature is palpable: “Japanese people are really in their heads, especially in the city, because there are so many unwritten rules we need to follow. Because of that, the city is like a well-oiled machine, and everything is functioning, but when you’re in it, I feel like it drives all that energy up to your head.”
Ahn channeled that tension—or perhaps rewilded it—into the collection, which combined the streetwise snarl of an urban life with pieces that would look equally at home on a mountain rescue mission. The designer also went hard on making everything as modular as possible: many pieces had extra zips or fastenings so that pants could be transformed into shorts or adjusted for more breathability. Of particular note was an MA-1 bomber in squishy nylon that was reversible, and a great matching skirt with buckles riding up the thigh. In the Ambush universe, combat boots and heeled mules coexist in complete harmony. “Seamless,” as Ahn puts it.
Primal influences came through in the painted wolf on the back of a jacket, the bright camo prints, and in the furry detailing on bag straps. The palette oscillated between the natural and industrial: oxidized copper, wet concrete, and mossy green, punctuated by cobalt. “I wanted to bring those more energetic colors to give a little sprinkle of spice,” she said.
Intelligent, tough, and sexy, it recaptured the energy that first catapulted the brand to fame in the 2010s, reframing it for the future. “In the past, there was a little bit of a disconnect where fashion kind of lived in a fantasy,” she said. “Now I think I want to be more in my body.” Wise words that well-dressed wild women everywhere can appreciate.
