Issey Miyake “ the tailor of the wind ”

Issey Miyake is a Japanese luxury brand. The women’s clothing collection is distinguished by the experimentation of colors, innovative fabrics and cuts of jackets and coats. The most iconic and recognizable element of the brand is undoubtedly the plissé: polyester fabric made with a patented technique that makes pleating indestructible. From the aesthetic point of view the plissé is the perfect representation of the philosophy of Miyake: movement, energy, dynamism, lightness, all elements incorporated within every single fold made to perfection, giving life to dresses, tops, and skirts that blend with the wearer’s body. "They are designed to embrace the body, hiding or emphasizing the aspects I want. This has been possible thanks to technology".

Issey Miyake stands out for his extremely experimental approach. A brand that reflects the perfect fusion of art, technology and tradition, the right balance between oriental culture and avant-garde tailoring. The result is clothes with an artistic and conceptual soul, the result of an unconventional creative process. A real innovative way of thinking that led Issey Miyake to give new context to the concept of Japanese fashion, combining artisanal techniques and technological innovations with a revolutionary approach focused on functionality, completely free from trends and especially from the concept of gender, preferring unisex garments. The focus of his creations is the analysis of the space between the human body and tissues. In particular, the fabrics have always represented one of his greatest interests: manipulations, experiments and research of materials. The strong points of the brand are the technology and the application of scientific studies: in fact, in addition to the most poetic and artistic aspect, Issey Miyake has always counted on the support of materials and studies very distant from the fashion world, with the intention of bringing novelty and constant evolution. One of his goals is to transform two-dimensional fabrics into three-dimensional creations. One example is the creation of "A Piece of Cloth", created in 1999 with the collaboration of Dai Fujiwarai, where a single yarn combined with a binary code and a digitalized textile machine creates a long tubular fabric that contains an entire wardrobe. A revolutionary project that is the spokesman of the search for balance that has always distinguished Issey Miyake: applying the Japanese tradition to the construction of clothes and finding inspiration through the passion for technology

It was 1970, when Issey Miyake decided to found the Miyake design studio in Tokyo, the fulcrum of his entire artistic career. The young designer, visionary, experimental, creatively pure and free, with his creations that release the body from the traditional tailoring shapes has managed to overcome all the boundaries of Western fashion. Miyake, marks indelibly the era of the Japanese avant-garde, together with his countrymen Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto and Kenzo Takeda: their volumes and their exaggerated proportions radically change the world fashion system. In 1971, Issey Miyake debuted in New York with his first collection focused on hand-painted jerseys and then in 1973 came the turn of Paris. The designer not only brings Japanese culture to Europe for the first time, creating a bridge between two stories and lifestyles diametrically opposed, but decides to deconstruct the traditional concept of beauty, making asymmetry, imperfections and abstract forms its strong point. In 1998 Issey Miyake, nicknamed the genius of folds, retired as creative director to dedicate himself to his research projects and experimentation on textile materials, always the focus of his creations. Satoshi Kondo was named the brand’s creative director in 2020.