Slides of runway show(s) by Issey Miyake, fall/winter 1997, spring/summer 1998, and spring/summer 2001., 1997-2001

Japanese fashion designer, active in Tokyo and Paris. For his Autumn/Winter 1998 collection, Issey Miyake sent all his models down the Paris catwalk in a single stream of red, knitted tubing. Unlike the typical fashion show where the season’s look is unveiled in its finalized form, Miyake’s show was a presentation of his process. In collaboration with designer Dai Fujiwara, Miyake developed a radical approach to fashion design. Utilizing technological advances in fibre, fabric and computer science, he created a system to manufacture individual garments from a single thread. The method, known as A-POC, an acronym for ‘A Piece of Cloth’, is Miyake’s solution to the complicated manufacturing methods of traditional cut-and-sew garments.



Miyake was born in Hiroshima 1938 and witnessed the destruction and devastation of his country during World War II, but also saw its rise and redemption in the following years. This strength imbued in him allowed his artistry and discipline to grow. In 1959, Miyake attended Tama Art University in Tokyo where he studied graphic design. Though it was his passion, the university offered no courses in apparel arts. During this time, he struggled with the traditional Japanese views on fashion; that it was not an industry for men and that its core resided only in Paris. Despite these ideas, Miyake presented his first show in 1963 entitled A Poem of Cloth and Stone.



The show was based on the dynamic of dress as both a visual form and a utilitarian endeavour. Miyake’s work led him to Paris in 1965, where he studied at the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. Upon graduation, he worked for designer Guy Laroche and eventually worked at Hubert de Givenchy. Paris gave him the training he needed, but it also exposed him to the rigid state of French fashion at the time and he intended to burst out of this shell.



He moved to New York in 1969 and worked for designer Geoffrey Beene, but returned to Tokyo in 1970 and opened up his first company, Miyake Design Studio. He was soon showing his collections in New York and Paris, and immediately gained international acclaim. In the following decade Miyake, along with designers Kenzo Takada (b 1939) and Rei Kawakubo of Commes des Garçons, solidified the relationship between Japanese designers and French fashion, creating a revolutionary league of Japanese avant-garde design. Miyake drew inspiration from both the old and new, East and West, taking such historical Japanese techniques as sashiko quilting, an 18th-century restoration stitch, and adapting it for contemporary design. He also created a body-stocking printed with traditional Japanese tattoos known as irezumi, but altered the designs to include the faces of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. The latter concept stemmed from his fascination with clothing as ‘second skin’.



In 1988, Miyake began researching the technique of pleating, experimenting with various fabrics and processes. Instead of pleating the fabric first as traditionally done, Miyake first created the garment, and then added the pleats. He also adapted this process to create zigzag and diagonal pleating that lent an architectural form to his garments. Five years later, Miyake launched the Pleats Please Issey Miyake label. The result of his research was an easily wearable, washable garment made of 100% polyester jersey, a fittingly practical approach to fashion.



With Miyake’s A-POC, thread is fed into A-POM (‘A Piece of Machine’) that has been programmed to knit or weave a garment directly into the fabric according to the wearer’s specifications. The result is a garment that is perfectly made-to-measure and created with minimal resources. A-POC thus achieves the democratization of fashion. It was a process created to serve the masses by fulfilling the needs of the individual and allows the wearer to be an active participant in the process of making clothes. Miyake’s revolutionary approach to design was the culmination of decades of his research and experimentation in fashion.



Already believing that fashion is an art, Miyake devoted his career to making it a solution. His process is ongoing, with each collection building upon the previous and reiterating his approach to maintaining traditions in fashion through technology. He aimed at reinventing the perception of fashion as well as the industry that produces it. His work has garnered praise from the worlds of art and fashion, and his pieces are in the holdings of such prestigious institutions as the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Kyoto Costume Institute. From 2008, the house of Issey Miyake was run by Dai Fujiwara, who graduated from Tama Art University in 1995 with a degree in textile design.

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