ABOUT THE CLOTHES

In 1968, Miyake witnessed student protests that broke out in Paris. He observed the ubiquity of t-shirts and jeans that the students were wearing as they marched across the city. It became one of his major source of inspirations that materialised two decades later.

In the late 80s, Miyake was commissioned to produce outfits for the production The Loss of Small Detail for the Frankfurt Ballet. He chose to create lightweight outfits with pleating methods which would mould and move with the dancers.

Between 1988 and 1993, Issey Miyake [worked] on a new pleating method, with many glorious, architectural iterations appearing on the runway. They were an explosion of gravity-defying, joyous celebrations of fashion that liberated women from the constraints of Western beauty ideals and promised freedom of movement for the wearer. He combined the airiness of the lightweight fabric and the stiffness derived from its pleated texture with innovative pattern-making to create garments that metamorphosed from two-dimensional flat shapes into living, breathing sculptures on the body.

In 1993, the line Pleats Please Issey Miyake was born. The label offers clothing as lightweight, fuss-free and practical solutions for everyday wear.

(Note: We are selling several pre-pleats pieces in the sale - rare and designed by Miyake himself)

Issey Miyake Bio

Issey Miyake (1938-2022) was a pioneering Japanese fashion designer known for his innovative and technology-driven designs. From the start of his career, Miyake focused on traditional Japanese materials and handiwork. He respected it and used it as a starting point, adding modern tweaks as well as using new technologies to develop original materials that could be used in modern apparel. He is famous for the Pleats, Please range which is still sold widely today, and APOC - A Piece of Cloth range where all of the clothes are made from a single roll of fabric.

Issey Miyake is best known for its blend of flowing fabrics and designs of Eastern style with the technology and modern sensibilities of Western style. Using a wide array of both natural and synthetic materials,Miyake likes to be seen as an artist rather than a designer, developing new ways to utilize both function and form in his designs.