Issey Miyake North Dakota

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.

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