Issey Miyake was a Japanese fashion designer that was known for his “technology-driven” clothing designs, namely the pleating methods, exhibitions, and his fragrances. He was born in Hiroshima on April 22, 1983, and as a child wanted to be a dancer before stumbling upon his sister’s fashion magazines. He would go on to study graphic design at Tama Art University, where he fell in love with design, mostly due to the two bridges in the Hiroshima City Center, designed by Isamu Noguchi. He thought the bridges were a “spiritual support of the people''. From Tama Art University, he would go on to study dressmaking in Paris at École de la Chambre de la Couture Parisienne in 1965, and then would create and found Miyake Design Studio. In between going from Paris to founding his own studio, he would go to New York and attend Columbia University for English and would work with American designer Geoffrey Beene.
In the 1980s, Miyake would begin working on new pleated designs, innovating the concept by Mariano Founty. He wanted to create something that would allow flexibility of movement for those wearing it and would be easy to care for and produce. The garments were made from ultrathin polyester and had an accordion-like shape. He slowly became an international name and would launch his Pleats Please collection in 1993, and would launch A Piece of Cloth, which were garments machine-knitted from a single thread. Miyake was known for his textile innovations that included unorthodox materials in ratt
an and reinforced plastic and would host the “Issey Miyake: Body Works’ exhibit, one of the first exhibits that presented fashion as an art form. However, he didn’t solely focus on clothes, creating a floral fragrance for women in L’eau d’Issey in 1992 and would display this up in 1994 with L’eau d’Issey Pour Homme.
Issey Miyake viewed fashion as more than clothes and treated it more as art while mending it with aspects of science. His art appeared everywhere from Steve Jobs and his turtlenecks to Robin Williams’ bomber jacket to the uniforms of Sony workers. He broke down barriers, becoming one of the first fashion designers to have their work on the cover of Artforum and his designs would become a permanent fixture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He would also open up doors, enlisting talent in creators like Shiro Kuramata, who he hired to create the bottle of his first perfume, and David Chipperfield, who was hired to plan out Miyake’s London boutique. His legacy is seen worldwide and his impact is undeniable.
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