Raku Meets Runway: The Kinetic Beauty of Kamoda’s Clay Reimagined in Issey Miyake IM Men's Collection

The brilliant hues of the new Issey Miyake IM Men collection at the Cartier Foundation in Paris. Photograph (above) and cover picture by Jay Zoo. 

Under the scorching summer sun in Paris, Issey Miyake’s IM Men returned to the runway with Dancing Texture, a Spring/Summer 2026 collection inspired by Japanese ceramicist Shoji Kamoda. The show transformed fabric into sculpture, channeling bold forms into designs that shimmered, swirled, and unfolded in motion. With a new ASICS footwear collaboration and a design team pushing boundaries, the collection marked a powerful fusion of tradition, technology, and transformation. Story by Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photographs by Jay Zoo and Andrea Heinsohn  

The fabrics recalling the ceramicist 

Shoji Kamoda, were key to the new 

collection shown in Paris. 

Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn 

ON a steaming summer morning in Paris, Issey Miyake’s IM Men's collection was presented at the Cartier Foundation, heat radiating from the contemporary art museum's steel and glass. Yet the fashion offered a bracing dash of cool minimalism, a meditation on form, motion, and material memory. 

For Spring/Summer 2026, the Japanese house stepped into new terrain by looking to an old master: pioneering Japanese ceramicist Shoji Kamoda (1933–1983), whose short but radical career transformed the very language of clay. Now, his quiet revolution finds a second life, this time, not on the wheel, but on the body.

Kamoda, trained in Kyoto and active in Mashiko and Töno, was known for challenging the boundaries of ceramic form and texture. Through bold glazes, engraved surfaces, and sculptural shapes, he rejected the purely functional in favor of pieces that seemed to hum with inner movement. IM Men, the last line personally envisioned by Issey Miyake, takes that same spirit of experimentation and applies it to cloth. The result is Dancing Texture, a kinetic menswear collection that interprets Kamoda’s essence not as reference, but as transformation.

The show was an audacious, cerebral continuation of Issey Miyake’s vision ~ not simply designed, but engineered, often with humour,  intelligence, and occasionally delightful excess

The performance part of the show added another 

layer of meaning to the collection, with the dancers 

wearing the textiles inspired by Kamoda's pottery.

Photograph: Jay Zoo 

With the guidance of design trio Sen Kawahara, Yuki Itakura, and Nobutaka Kobayashi, the collection unfolded as a dialogue between art and garment. The runway, bathed in the intense light, played host to a series of pieces that shifted, shimmered, and unfolded. 

Dramatic choreography animated the designs in ways that brought Kamoda’s tactile world to life. Like clay turned on a wheel, the clothes seemed to emerge in real time, catching light, casting shadow, constantly re-forming.

Divided into a conceptually rich series, the collection offered a masterclass in textile innovation. The Urokomon series drew from Kamoda’s recurring use of fish scale-like patterns, employing a process where printed designs are gradually revealed by washing away parts of the upper fabric layer, echoing the unpredictability of firing ceramics. The Gintō pieces channeled the metallic lustre of Kamoda’s silver-glazed works, rendered here in fabrics that folded like armor yet floated like paper. Kaiyu used pigment printing to mimic the contrast between celadon glazes and exposed clay, while the Engrave series featured jacquard-woven, heat-sensitive materials that seemed to rise in waves under the touch of warmth.

The ceramicist was most keenly felt in the collection's philosophical undercurrent: the idea that everyday objects, when shaped with care and purpose carry emotional resonance

The designs mixed the futuristic with

folds that related back to origami, plus

the new footwear designed with Asics.

Photograph: Jay Zoo 

Each technique served not as homage, but as extension. Just as Kamoda stretched the boundaries of what ceramics could be, so too does IM Men stretch the assumptions of what menswear can look and feel like. 

The silhouettes ranged from space-age tailoring, coats with collars that unfolded like origami sculptures, to garments that, when laid flat, formed geometric shapes recalling the symmetry of wheel-thrown pots. Throughout, there was a persistent sense of duality: structured yet soft, organic yet engineered, tactile yet futuristic.

Iridescent textiles flashed under the blazing light; oversized hats and sculptural outerwear veered into the surreal. But then came the contrast, a whisper-light tunic in ash green and an urbane black ensemble that grounded the show in a language Miyake always spoke fluently: quiet innovation. These pieces captured the heart of the brand’s legacy, where invention is not a gimmick but a way to honor motion, simplicity, and surprise.

One of the most intriguing additions to this season’s show was the quiet debut of Issey Miyake Foot, a footwear initiative created in collaboration with Asics

IM Men is a return to the early, rigorous

work of Japanese founder Issey Miyake.

Photograph: Jay Zoo 

This was also a show of new beginnings. While Homme Plissé, Miyake’s pleated menswear staple, has now migrated to nomadic presentations abroad, IM Men has taken its place in Paris. 

And with it, a return to the rigorous, conceptual experimentation that defined Miyake’s early career. His influence, both aesthetic and philosophical, was everywhere. The very idea of clothing as an extension of movement, of fabric as a medium to be sculpted, continues to underpin the brand’s evolving identity.

One of the most intriguing additions to this season’s show was the quiet debut of Issey Miyake Foot, a footwear initiative created in collaboration with Asics. 

The first product: Hyper Taping, a laceless shoe built from dynamic straps that sprout from the brand’s iconic side stripe. The result felt more like wearable sculpture than streetwear, its form recalling cleatless football boots, its function grounded in ergonomic design. Much like Kamoda’s vessels, these shoes seemed to reject any single purpose, instead suitable for a range of activities.

While Homme Plissé, Miyake’s pleated menswear staple, has migrated to nomadic presentations abroad, IM Men in Paris has returned to the rigorous, conceptual experimentation that defined Miyake’s early career

The designs were contemporary but with a

 universality that made them feel timeless.

Photograph: Jay Zoo 

At its core, Dancing Texture was an exhibition of restraint and risk, of translating heritage without imitating it. It asked: what happens when the touch of the hand, the movement of the body, and the spirit of craft converge? 

Through the language of materials, IM Men found an answer that felt neither from the past nor futuristic but rather, timeless. Kamoda may have worked in clay, but his legacy now ripples across new surfaces, carried forward by a house that still believes fashion can be sculpture, and that clothing, like ceramics, can hold memory in motion.

The ceramicist was perhaps most keenly felt in the show’s philosophical undercurrent: the idea that everyday objects, when shaped with care and purpose, can carry emotional resonance. Just as Kamoda’s vessels were never just decorative, these garments weren’t merely for show. They invited a slow gaze, a reconsideration of surface and structure, a connection between hand and material that defies trend cycles.

IM Men’s SS26 show was not about nostalgia or legacy maintenance. It was an audacious, cerebral continuation of Issey Miyake’s vision: that clothing is not simply designed, but engineered, often with humor, always with intelligence, and occasionally with delightful excess. In a city overrun with maximalism, it offered a quieter, more studied kind of spectacle, one where fabric and light, tradition, invention and craft could all dance together.

Scroll down to see more highlights from the IM Men collection by Jay Zoo