Issey Miyake

Research
The What If? Metropolis

Emma Morley
Who is Issey Miyake?
Born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1938
Fashion designer specialising in technology-based
clothing manufacture
First collection presented in 1963 A-POC an
acronym for A Piece of Cloth

Graduated from Tama University, Tokyo in 1964
Miyake Design Studio (MDS) founded in Tokyo
in 1970
First fragrance in launched in 1992, Leau dIssey
In February 1993, one of Miyakes most famous
brands Pleats Please was launched

Miyakes
Style
Interested in work clothes
that peasants, cart drivers
and carpenters used to
wear. Studied them for
beauty and functionality

Allowed the body total freedom
of movement but at the same
time beautiful and practical

Starburst collection thin membranes of metallic
paper are heat-pressed on to clothes made of soft
cotton, flannel, wool, felt or jersey. These sheets of
metal were torn open along the lines of the creases to
reveal the random patterns

Collects watches which he
never winds up, mimicking
his unhurried pace

Makes dresses weighing only a few
ounces. Concentrated hard on
reducing the weight of clothing
Work is full of curiosity,
wonder and laughter
Inspired by Samurai
armour
Movement
Rhythm Colour
Shells
Waves
Universal Comfortable
Uses natural or untreated wood
fibres; Indonesian batiks;
Japanese oiled paper (abura
gami); synthetic, permanently
creased material
Easy to wear
On Issey Miyake
Wearing a Miyake is like wearing an experience. Li Edelkoort, Issey
Miyake, A View on Colour Special

Issey Miyake always finds the ultimate balance between destruction and
creation. He is always on the borderline so he is constantly creating new
worlds. Cai Guo-Qiang, Figaro Japan

Crossing boundaries of nation, gender and age, clothes and living spaces
will merge into one architecture, and return to a single piece of cloth to
gently embrace us. Kazuto Sato, Pleats Please

Miyake draws inspiration from shells, algae and stones, and indeed every kind of
shape found in nature. Irving Penn

the image of the strong, beautiful woman who had escaped from the past and
was resolutely facing the future. Kazuko Sato, Issey Miyake Making Things

Miyake dresses life with the energy of the future. Laurence Benaim, Issey
Miyake Fashion Memoir

Miyake Design Studio (MDS)
Designed by Kojiro Kitayama.
Outside is windowless and illuminated by light wells.
Inside, everything is open plan, with a storage system
where everything is kept out of sight.
Rooms whose shapes can be changed at will. Almost as if
the room changes size to allow staff to move around.
Everything is done with exceptional grace and attention.
Always alert but very calm.
There are 100 different shades of white.
Isseys office consists of a light-coloured wooden table
with a box filled with trusted market pens which he has
used for over twenty years.
Miyake quotes:-
The spirit of curiosity and pleasure is at the heart of our
work and thats exactly what we wish to share with the
visitors.
Instead of thinking about how clothes were made I started
to think about how they were used.
I think that ideas are like clothes one should be able to
change them easily.

My work consists, above all, or simplifying and purifying.
Just showing the result of my work doesnt interest me; I
want to show the process.
If I think something today, theres no certainty that I wont
think differently in one year.
From the beginning I thought about working with the
body in movement, the space between the body and
clothes. I wanted the clothes to move when people moved.
The clothes are also for people to dance or laugh.

There are so many different colours and materials, and the relations which exist between them are
very subtle, for it is the combination of these two elements which creates an emotion.
I am above all stimulated by the work of my contemporaries, living artists who are my friends.
(Christo, Jeanne-Claude, Anselm Kiefer)
Many artists have influenced me: Isamu Noguchi, Irving Penn, Lucie Rie, Robert Rauschenberg, Akira
Kurosawa, Shiro Kurumata, etc.
I hope to continue bringing craft and industry together in order to produce work which will provoke
humour, fun and emotion.

Issey Miyake on the relationship between his work and Architecture:-
It doesnt really have any, even though architecture, the idea of building a city, interests me
greatly. Architecture is a fascinating idea, but in my opinion it should not be considered simply from an
aesthetic point of view. Architecture has the power to make people react. In France, where you not
only find new buildings but a variety of transformations of old ones, architecture really provokes
reactions. The Centre Georges Pompidou or the Fondation Cartier are examples of this.

Architecture allows us to create striking
contemporary pieces which make you want to find out
what theyre like inside. I remember how amazed I was
when I saw the Centre Georges Pompidou or the
pyramid of the Louvre for the first time! Thats the role
of architecture to give off real energy by its mere
presence.

Left: Issey Miyake Foundation

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Research

The What If? Metropolis

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