Sunday 13 January 2019

Japanese Luxury Label Issey Miyake's New Directions

Issey Miyake's Creative Director Yoshiyuki Miyamae's innovative Sping/Summer 2019 collection in Paris. Main picture and Cover shot for DAM by Elli Ioannou
 
Ise Takahiko has been appointed the new president of Japanese luxury label Issey Miyake. The fashion brand's latest collection was one of the highlights of the SS19 Paris Fashion Week. The artistic and experimental show by creative director Yoshiyuki Miyamae demonstrated he is taking the fashion house in new directions but keeping the eponymous designer's innovative ethos, writes Grania Connors. Additional reporting from Paris and photographs by Elli Ioannou

New malleable textiles
 at Issey Miyake
SIGNALLING a shift in focus for Issey Miyake, Takahiko Ise’s promotion to president of the company comes at the same time as the appointment of new managing directors Koji Usui and Keisuke Harukiya. Mr Ise replaces Masakatsu Nagatani and was formerly the fashion brand’s head of production.

Based in Tokyo, the Issey Miyake label is well known for experimentation with fabrics and different materials and techniques.  The company is still focused on technology today and the new president is keen to promote even more innovation. The technical virtuosity behind Issey Miyake’s designs and the avant-garde pleating and cutting techniques are the signature of the label.

Mr. Ise began to work with Issey Miyake at the beginning of the 1980s, overseeing planning and production at the company. During that time, he has also worked across different iterations of the Issey Miyake label such as Pleats Please Issey Miyake, Me Issey Miyake, Homme Plissé Issey Miyake and Bao Bao Issey Miyake. Today, Issey Miyake has stores around the world including Paris, London, New York, Milan and Zurich. In Japan, there are three in Tokyo ~ Shibuya, Chuo and Minato ~ plus emporiums in Osaka and Hyogo.

There is a technical virtuosity behind Issey Miyake’s designs and the label is renowned for its avant-garde pleating and cutting techniques

While the label was originally founded by Issey Miyake in 1971,the company’s overall creative direction has been led by designer Yoshiyuki Miyamae and his team since 2012. At Paris fashion week, Japanese style is unusual enough to always stand out from current global clothing trends. The Japanese aesthetic is made singular by its fluidity and draping and the constant experimentation with creating new textiles and ways of colouring materials.

The Dough Dough fabric
that can be shaped
by hand
Yoshiyuki Miyamae’s new collection for Spring/Summer 2019 was inspired by the human hand. The designer says that the "history of mankind is all made by hand". He goes back to an earthy, artisanal view of living life, examining the importance of gathering food, making tools and growing crops and how this relates to our clothes.

"Hands have been weaving sewing, and giving new shape to cloth. Yet what if we could play with the shape more freely as if kneading dough or moulding clay?" asks Mr. Miyamae. This exploration of ideas lead to the development of this season's new malleable fabric for the Issey Miyake collection. "A free and flexible cloth that invites the hands to play," explains the designer. "You can twist, roll, crumple, fold and stretch it. A fabric that you can freely play with and enjoy, changing it into any shape like dough."

Called “Dough Dough”, the new material is woven with a urethane mesh that allows it to be moulded into any shape. The designer wants to celebrate the handmade in our digital world and the clothes to have a greater sense of freedom of movement. It is an engaging concept to have clothes that you can shape yourself and wear in a new way every day. It gives fashion a sense of play where the wearer can use the clothes to create their own individual, unique look.

What if we could play with the shape of fabrics more freely as if kneading dough or moulding clay?

Brilliant splashes of colour added to
 the painterly ethos of the show
On the runway in Paris during the SS19 Issey Miyake show, models unfolded the materials to create hats as they walked along and shaped the Dough Dough fabric of their clothes with their hands. Each dress and hat can be transformed in a myriad of ways. The pieces also showed a great attention to cut as well as to the form, with the dresses and skirts seemingly both pliable and supple but with a ripple of stiff underpinning.

The voluminous shapes of the collection were also enhanced by pieces that looked like a painter's canvas, covered in an impasto of vivid splashes of blue, green, turquoise and pink. These were painted with traditional Japanese brooms and the patterns became prints while others were woven into Jacquards. The collection featured fluid and draped silhouettes combined with capacious coats, commodious tunics and vests and architecturally draped blouses.

Hats were also formed into twisted headpieces or made of straw. The rural-looking straw hats at the start, plus the Dough Dough versions moulded by models on the runway, once more suggested the artisan nature of Yoshiyuki Miyamae’s concept for the new collection. It will be interesting to see what the new team at the top of the fashion label will develop for the next season at Issey Miyake.

Highlights from the new Issey Miyake collection in Paris for Sping/Summer 2019
Covered in a thick impasto of colour, the dresses worn with and-made straw hats in quirky shapes added to the sense of artisanal creativity in the SS19 collection.
Tall, malleable hats were part of the concept of being able to create your own shapes and forms with the clothes. 

The voluminous shapes of the collection were also enhanced by pieces that looked like a painter's canvas, covered in vivid splashes of blue, green, turquoise and pink.

Called “Dough Dough”, the new material is woven with a urethane mesh that allows it to be moulded into any shape.
The designer wants to celebrate the handmade in our digital world and the clothes to have a greater sense of freedom of movement.

Based in Tokyo, the Issey Miyake label is well known for experimentation with fabrics and different materials and techniques.
The technical virtuosity behind Issey Miyake’s designs and the avant-garde pleating and cutting techniques are the signature of the label.
While the label was originally founded by Issey Miyake in 1971,the company’s overall creative direction has been led by designer Yoshiyuki Miyamae and his team since 2012.
At Paris fashion week, Japanese style is unusual enough to always stand out from current global clothing trends.
The Japanese aesthetic is made singular by its fluidity and draping and the constant experimentation with creating new textiles and ways of colouring materials. 
Yoshiyuki Miyamae’s new collection for Spring/Summer 2019 was inspired by the human hand.
The designer says that the "history of mankind is all made by hand".
 "Hands have been weaving sewing, and giving new shape to cloth. Yet what if we could play with the shape more freely as if kneading dough or moulding clay?" asks Mr. Miyamae.
 

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