Issey Miyake
A famous fashion desiner from Hiroshema to Paris, Izzey Miyake is now globally renown. Founder of the Miyake design studio as well as the Miyake Izzey Foundation, he continues to innovate well beyond fabrics and clothing.
With the future as his guide and nature his inspiration, the path-breaking Japanese designer has created clothing with enduring, global appeal.
Issey Miyake was born in Hiroshima, Japan on April 22 of 1938. Fascinated with his sister's fashion magazines, Miyake set out to become a designer, even though the vocation was not considered man's work. Miyake decided to study graphic design at the Tama Art University in Tokyo, and graduated in 1964. After graduation, he moved to Paris and continued studying at the Syndicat de la Couture school. Then he apprenticed with Guy Laroche and Hubert de Givenchy, but the rigidity of haute couture didn't appeal to Miyake. He moved on to work for Geoffrey Beene in New York as well.
He later returned to Tokyo in 1970, and founded the Miyake Design Studio to create new fabrics and clothes. And from that, he built a reputation for his technology-driven clothing designs and exhibitions. Soon after, he took a few pieces to Bloomingdales, which promptly gave the fledgling designer a small corner of the store. His clothes began to be sold in the two biggest department stores in Tokyo.
Miyake's basic tenets for making clothes has always been the idea of creating a garment from 'one piece of cloth', and the exploration of the space between the human body and the cloth that covers it. His approach to design has always been to strike a consistent balance between tradition and innovation, handcrafts and new technology.
In 1971, Miyake exhibits his first collection in New York City. His shows were so successful that he decided to move his shows to the heart of fashion, Paris, in 1973, where they are still put on twice a year. After that rapid rise to prominence, Miyake has kept up the pace of inspired creation. In the late 1970s, he began by riffing on traditional Japanese clothing such as kimonos and sashiko coats. He was awarded the Japan Fashion Editor's Club Award in 1974. And by 1976, he had broken from an exclusively Eastern style with the famous "Twelve Black Girls" show in Tokyo, in which a dozen black models displayed riveting second-skin designs. Miyake then publishes a summary of his work as well as a statement of his international intentions, East Meets West, in 1978.
The 1980s was a busy time in Miyake’s career, a time where he was often recognized for his work. He was awarded the Pratt Institute, New York Award for Creative Design in 1980, the International Award of the Council of America Fashion Designers 1984, the Neiman-Marcus Award also in 1984, the Best Collection presented by a Foreign Designer-Award of Les Oscars 1985 de la Mode, Paris in 1985, and the Award of the Japanese magazine for the textile industry Senken Shimbun in 1986. In the late 80s, he began to experiment with new methods of pleating that would allow both flexibility of movement for the wearer as well as ease of care and production for the Miyake design sensibility revolves around change and movement.
This eventually resulted in a new technique called “garment pleating.” In 1993, he introduced "Pleats Please" in which the garments are cut and sewn first, then sandwiched between layers of paper and fed into a heat press, where they are pleated. The fabric's 'memory' holds the pleats and when the garments are liberated from their paper cocoon, they are ready-to wear. Overshadowing the 1976 show was another eye-opening presentation, 1995's "Beautiful Ladies," which featured six women ages 62 to 92.
He is the first Asian designer to have become truly global, not only in renown but also in aesthetic. Miyake isn't identified so much as a Japanese designer as a designer who happens to be from Japan. "People refer to clothes that no one can wear as being 'avant-garde,'" Miyake commented last year, "but that's not really true. People always refer to the past when they speak, but I just happen to think that the present is a bit behind itself." That philosophy of always looking forward has its roots in his early life in Hiroshima.
In 1994 and 1999, Miyake turned over the design of the men's and women's collections respectively, to his associate, Naoki Takizawa, so that he could return to research.
Like many fashion designers, Issey Miyake also has a line of perfumes. His first fragrance, the light aquatic-floral L'eau d'Issey for women, was launched in 1992. The scent was followed by L'eau d'Issey Pour Homme (for men) in 1994. In 1998, Miyake embarked upon a new project called A-POC (A Piece of Cloth)with Dai Fujiwara and a team of young designers. He is challenging the way in which clothing is made using new process that harnesses computer technology to industrial knitting or weaving machines to create clothing beginning with a single piece of thread.
In February 2004, Miyake established the Miyake Issey Foundation with the authorization of the Ministry of Education and Science. He then returned to his perfume/cologne industry to introduce L'eau Bleue d'Issey Pour Homme in late 2004. A new Issey Miyake men's fragrance was introduced worldwide in September of 2006. Issey Miyake fragrances are produced under a long-term agreement by the Beauté Prestige International division of Shiseido, who also produces fragrances for Narciso Rodriguez and Jean-Paul Gaultier.
Miyake has stores in Tokyo, Paris, New York, and London. His New York flagship store, Tribeca Issey Miyake was designed by Frank Gehry and is the first to carry all seven of his collections.
His influence is evident in the pop culture as well, where he was mentioned in a song by Pet Shop Boys, Flamboyant.
And it's the future that continues to drive Miyake in his design. "I would be very happy if it was said of me that I had provided some keys to the 21st century," he said last year. "All I can do is to keep experimenting, keep developing my thoughts further. Certain people think that the definition of design is the beauty of the useful, but in my own work I want to integrate feelings, emotion. You have to put life into it."