Issey miyake fanzine by Clem Macleod

EAST MEETS WEST ISSEY MIYAKE

“I have tried to create a style that is neither Japanese nor Western.” With a name that means ‘one life’ (Issey), ‘three houses’ (Miyake), Issey Miyake is a fashion designer who has revolutionized fashion by blurring the lines between present and future, art and fashion, technology and fashion and East and West.

Image: Irving Penn.

Issey Miyake was born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1938. His first formal encounter with fashion was in 1965 when he began studying and training at the ‘Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture’ in Paris (The French regulator of Haute Couture fashion houses). After years of internships at major fashion houses such as Givenchy, in 1970, the designer founded the Miyake Design Studio. From here his empire would grow. Miyake showed his first readyto-wear collection in New York in 1971. Through his designs, Miyake has been known to conduct vast experimenta-

Cover Image: Chanel Iman in Issey Miyake by Noriaki Yokosuka

tion with cutting-edge technology, in particular within his ‘Pleats Please’ collection. After years of experimentation within Pleats, he then went on to collaborate with fine artists such as Yasumasa Morimura, Nobuyushi Araki, Tim Hawkinson and Cai GuoQiang in his ‘Making Things’ series. Forty odd years and various collections later, Miyake has set up a new laboratory, ‘Reality Lab’, and is working with designs that are environmentally friendly and resource conscious. He will continue to create innovative designs for an advanced 21st century in fashion. Miyake has never wanted to be seen as an ‘exotic’. The notion of ‘East Meets West’ had been executed for years before him. The designer simply wantd to create simple clothing. Garments that were functional that could be produced without great expense.

INSPIRATIONS

MARIANO FORTUNY

PAUL POIRET

One of Miyake’s initial inspiration stemmed from the work of early designer Paul Poiret. The reason Poiret was such a huge influence to Miyake, is that the early 20th century designer essentially changed the way women wore clothing. At a time when whalebone corsets were of a high demand, Poiret worked to simplify clothes, starting with the woman’s silhouette. It was in the 1890’s when women were expected to have an ‘hourglass’ shape, something that would permit little freedom of movement. This had been the case in fashion history for the previous six hundred years. However, Poiret encouraged his clients to abandon the whalebone corset in favour of a stiff belt and began designing garments in which the skirt went from the bosom to the ground.

& INFLUENCES

‘Sorbet’ skirt and tunic, 1912.

It is undoubtedly clear that Mariano Fortuny’s ‘Delphos Gown’ inspired Issey Miyake’s ‘Pleats Please’ collection. Miyake wasn’t the first designer to use a pleating technique. While his specific method may have been revolutionary, Fortuny was the true inventor of the pleat. Fortuny was an avid experimenter, much like Miyake. In the early 1900’s, the designer developed methods of textile dyeing and printing fabrics that would be used for centuries after. Complimenting Miyake’s admiration for an ‘East meets West’ style, Fortuny was heavily influenced by Oriental art. The idea for Fortuny’s ‘Delphos’ gown came from a statue of a charioteer in Delphi. The garment is made from silk velvet and is inspired by 16th century Italian textiles with its metallic pigments and natural aesthetic. The gown was

‘Delphos Dress’ and evening jacket. c.1920

pleated and worn with a jacket. The shape of the jacket was said to be based around the kimono and when laid out flat was a perfect rectangle.

INSPIRATIONS & INFLUENCES

INSPIRATIONS & INFLUENCES ISAMU NOGUCHI

MADAME MADELEINE VIONNET

Evening Dress, 1936. “The architect among dressmakers”. “Vionnet sculpted her clothes Madame Madeleine Vionnet is most onto the body, I move mine well known for her contribution to design of the ‘bias cut’. The Bias cut is away, leaving the individual a technique that enhances the stretch- lots of room to move around.” ability of a garment by a specific cutting technique. Vionnet inspired Miyake’s ‘One Piece of Cloth’ concept. Vionnet was active as a fashion designer from the 1920’s to the 1930’s, ultimately an age of Haute Couture. The Vionnet signature is a use of geometrics, when Miyake began his design experimentation, he worked with diamonds, he first came across Vionnet’s work when working with them.

Collection by Shigeru Sera Courtesy of Hiroshima Municipal Archives Isamu Noguchi was a name closely associated with Miyake throughout his entire design practice. When Miyake was a young boy, living in Hiroshima, the 1945 bomb hit the city as he was walking to school. In 1951, Noguchi was commissioned to build the ‘Peace Bridges’ in Hiroshima; one referring to the rising sun and new begginings and the other oriented towards the setting sun. When built, the bridges were said to be ahead of their time in terms of design. In every way, Noguchi incorporated the ‘East Meets West’ mentality. Noguchi was monumental whilst simulatenously touching on themes of mythicism and elementalism. The sculptor is a Japanese artist living in

the US, however in post-war japan, when American influence was at its peak, Noguchi appeared ‘too japanese’. Noguchi was inspired by Brancusi in terms of materials and his simplistic design approach.

PLEATS

PLEASE

Through his designs, Miyake has been the ‘MOVES’ documentary puts it. known to conduct vast experimentaMiyake wanted to create a space tion with cutting-edge technology, in between the body and the clothing. particular within his ‘Pleats Please’ collection, based on the ‘One Piece “I was in the Egypt, headof Cloth’ idea. A-POC, ‘A Piece of Cloth’, was an idea inspired by the work of Madame Madeleine Vionnet. The concept is that the designer uses shapes cut out of a single piece of cloth to create garments with fluidity through draping. Miyake makes reference to Europe in the 1960’s and the clothes that were being worn. He talks of the complex garments that would follow the lines of the body that ‘packaged flesh’, as Setsuka Miura director of

ing down the Nile towards Alexandria, I saw the sails on the boats and I thought, ‘wow, wind and cloth!’ like the movement of wind filling a wind sock”

Pleats Please shop, London. Image: Clementine Macleod

In the late 1980’s Miyake began experimenting with a new pleating technique that challenged traditional methods. The new technique would give the wearer a sense of flexibility with pleats opening and closing to facilitate movement. The garments were cut two to three times larger than normal, they are then folded in their paper wrapping and heat pressed. This creative process explored the relationship of the clothes to the body

and the space in between. The designer experimented with rope, plastic, paper, woven grass and created new ways of draping, folding and pleating. In response to the collection, Miyake declared, “We believe the Pleats Please collection has the potential to serve as an artists canvas”. Miyake wanted to create clothing that could be folded away easily, trying to make things easier for the modern day woman. A-POC Demo, June 2000

Postcard from Pleats Please shop, London ‘Pleats Please Travel Through the Planet’ Kenya, photographedby Yuriko Takagi, 2012

Guest Artist Series: Nobuyoshi Araki, Tim Hawkinson, Yasumasa Morimura, Cai Guo-Qiang, 1999 Installation View Issey Miyake: Making Things, Ace Gallery New York, Fall/Winter 1999

MAKING

THINGS Image: Irving Penn

Jumping, 1999. Installation View Issey Miyake: Making Things, Ace Gallery New York, Fall/Winter 1999

Laboratory, 1999. Installation View. Issey Miyake: Making Things, Ace Gallery New York, Fall/Winter 1999

Making Things was a fivePart exhibition Issey Miyake curated in 1998 as an alternative way to showcase his fashion designs. The exhibition appeared at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris and above all summarized Miyake’s previous ten years in fashion design. The five parts were ‘Jumping’, ‘Guest Art Series’, ‘Just Before’, ‘Laboratory’ and ‘Starburst’. These five sub-exhibits were a way for Miyake to express his need to combine all disciplines and forms of artistic practice within his design philosophy. In short, each sub-exhibit had its very own purpose. ‘Jumping’ questioned ideas of life and movement, ‘Guest Art Series’ offered a meeting place for artist from different forms of expression, ‘Just Before’ experimented with the nature of clothing itself allowing women to invent their own dresses,

‘Laboratory’ expressed the designer’s experimentation with materials and ‘Starburst’ represented Miyake’s proposal for clothing in the 21st century utilising recycled materials.

“His work is grounded in that stretch of history called the present and draws meaning from fashion’s immediate context. ‘Making Things’ presents that context with immense glamour and wit.” Herbert Muschamp, December 27, 1998 The New York Times.

In my opinion of the five parts, the most significant to the designers line is ‘The Guest Art Series’. In this space, around two hundred garments from the pleats please line were exhibited. The four artists that collaborated were Yasumasa Morimuri (1996), Nobuyoshi Araki (1997), Tim Hawkinson (1998) and Cai Guo Qiang (1998).Here, Miyake created a vantage point for the fusion of fine artists and fashion designers.

Starburst, 1999 Installation View Issey Miyake: Making Things, Ace Gallery New York, Fall/Winter 1999

Just Before, 1999. Installation View. Issey Miyake: Making Things, Ace Gallery New York, Fall/Winter 1999

SHOW

SPRING SUMMER 1995

The show starts with two models walking down a well-lit runway in pink and turquoise garments. The live music is oriental. They are both smiling, something that is unique to Miyake’s shows. The runway becomes less lit. The makeup matches the bright coloured palette of the clothing. There is a lot of layering of different pieces; it all looks to be made from polyester. The shoes are an appropriation of a traditional Japanese garment. The garments are getting lighter and longer as the show goes on. However, a model then comes out in a short, polka dot green dress with yellow boots. The models continue to come out wearing the same dress in different, bright colours. Three models walk out together all wearing yellow, the music becomes more tribal. As the show runs its course, the music gets more and more chaotic and the clothes become more and more experimental in their shape and material. The clothes move with the models, bouncing as they take their strides and unique materials like wire and plastic are making appearances. The music is being played on traditional Japanese instruments. Miyake experiments with headwear, featuring over and undersized hats. The makeup remains colourful as the garments become monochrome. The second half of the show sees the first appearance of ‘the Minaret Dress’. The models are walking slowly in various pieces from the pleats please collection when the model walks out and the first Minaret dress makes an appearance. A woman is playing the harp, a rare instrument for a unique piece of design. The models bop up and down to show the dresses incredible buoyancy. This collection shows incredible variety. Miyake is a designer who likes to experiment and push boundaries and this show illustrates this perfectly. His conceptual practice is based around creating things in response to contemporary issues; seen through the show’s reference to traditional Japanese culture in its soundtrack and in Miyake’s designs.

Images taken from S/S 1995 show, broadcasted on ‘Fashion Channel’

IRVING

In the early 1980’s one of Miyake’s most important partnerships occured. Irving Penn was a photographer known for his work in Vogue stylizing desirable women. In contrast, Miyake’s designs were conspicuous for their absence of eroticism; his shoots were to be depicted as choreographed rather than gestures of seduction. The two came together with their passion for abstraction. In the spring of 1983, Vogue published a photograph by Penn of Miyake’s work. Miyake was flattered and by 1986, the duo were a fixed deal. Since then, almost 200 images have been produced. When the two began work together, Miyake was adamant about one thing; he would never be present during one of Penn’s shoots. He wanted the photographer to have complete artistic freedom and trusted Penn enough to do so. Midori

Kitamura assisted Penn with the styling of the shoot, often asking him if he would like to turn the clothing back to front, at times Jun Kai assisted Kitamura. In terms of hair and makeup, John Sahag did the model’s hair and Tyen did the makeup. That was all the assistance the artist was given. Penns experimentation with Miyake’s work can be seen within his use of masks. First apparent in Penn’s ‘Man With The Pink Face’ a photograph taken in New Guinea, Penn found a likeness of bark and seaweed in Miyake’s designs and decided to mask his model in a hair of tangled moss and a neck covered in leaves. This work with masks continued and in ‘Silver and Gold Makeup’ for Vogue in 1985, his models face is bissected by metallic pigments. In ‘Vegetable Face’ of

PENN

1995, the face appears to be covered in a sort of salad.

“It looks too realistic... This looks more like fashion. It is not subtle. It is beautiful but it feels couture” - Penn would often say to his models.

Further, Miyake dislikes being regarded as a ‘Japanese Designer’. In this is a Penn’s Japan is imaginary. The photogsense of isolation. Contemporaries assosrapher has not been to the country for ciate Japan as a post-war nation, a sense over thirty years and he senses a senses a of insularity. Miyake draws from Japan spiritual absence in contemporary Japan. and positions himself beyond it. “He is not restricted by national identity constantly Both Miyake and Penn seek inspiration aspires to make international designs” from their worl travels. Miyake seeks Mark Holborn. fulfillment through the aesthetics and functionality of traditional Japan, he is attached to the idea of futurist aspirations however yearns for a wider world. Similarly, Penn brings inspiration to his work from his world travels, which he then touches on with a mythical geography. According to Mark Holborn, author of ‘Irving Penn Regards The Work of Issey Miyake, Penn’s travels have been necessary for his departure from fashion to something beyond.

“It looks like imperial Japan” - Penn examining a Miyake dress woven with cotton and white horsehair.

“Eat This!” 1989

While a lot of the partnership came about due to the mutual respect the artists had for eachother’s work, its foundation was based on the buddhist concept of ‘A-UN’; breathing in and breathing out.

“For me it is my ‘A’ and Pennsan’s ‘UN’. His ‘UN’ in turn becomes my ‘A’, and is returned to me by Penn-san.... Sometimes I am amused to liken our friendship to that of the Nio, the two fearsome gods standing guard before the gates of a buddhist temple, forever engaged in their own silent communication.”

Meditation in Japan looks at the bridge between the spiritual and the secular. In Penn’s first visit to Japan he recognized the vast amount of refined art. This refinement of colours and textures resonates strongly with Penn’s still life photography. Penn’s first image in Japan was of a bowl of soup. In Japanese culture food is considered a subject for meditation rather than consumption. In Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s text ‘In Praise of Shadows’ (1934), the Japanese writer recalls, “Whenever I sit with a bowl of soup before me, listening to the murmur that penetrates like a far-off shrill of an insect, lost in contemplation of flavors to come, I feel as if I were being drawn into a trance.”

Flying Saucer Dress

While Miyake works to dissassociate himself with the traditions of Japan, experi menting with modern technology and materials, Penn is more sentimental about the culture’s imbedded tradition. Penn arranges Miyake’s design’s against a white wall to define their geometric sillhouttes. Penn defines a lot of his work by the outline of it, starting off his ideas with a sketch. The most significant relationship of Penn and Miyake is their desire for global imagery. The duo surround themselves by other artistic figures who work to transcend the concept of tradition and work to create something universal. These artists see the space between East and West as a bridge rather than a division.

EAST ‘East Meets West’ is the title of Issey Miyake’s first book, published in 1978.Miyake and his photographer, Irving Penn, showed an expansion in their horizons with the influence of Africa and India through their tantric symbols and Rajasthani textiles. The entire collection was shown on black models such as Grace Jones.

MEETS last resort in a desperate attempt to fulfill a desire to return to the original state.”

While in the beggining Miyake worked to show the figure of the body, his ultimate aim was to diminish the assosciation of the clothes and the body and have both subjects do their own thing. Miyake wanted The 1968 student protest in Paris to demolish the concept of ‘Haute changed the way Miyake regarded Couture’ and the idea that clothes fashion. The 70’s were a time of change people. The simulatenous social upheavel in regard to its mass popularity of the jean that was occurprotesting movements. The essence ing during the time of this revelation of the protest was to push beyond helped the designer shape his ideas. existing authority and rules. Design- Miyake wanted to attract his viewer ers responded to this by confronting to the movement of his garments and rebellion against the rules physically models. and brought about renewed ways of thinking by first driving fashion back This idea of ‘Peeling Away to the Limto its original state. In 1970, Miyake it’ was again influenced by Madame came up with his ‘Peeling Away to Madeleine Vionnet. In the 1920’s the Limit’ concept. Arata Isozaki, Vionnet wanted to cut the fabric so Contributor to the East Meets West that it would not shape the sillhouette book, regards this concept as “the of the model, but move with them.

Far Left Image: Jo Franki; ELLE, June 1996. Image: Irving Penn

WEST The significance of Miyake’s garment’s lies in the fact that the designer works by draping a piece of fabric on a model and seeing its natural form. This technique shows his Japanese heritage and likens to the way the Kimono is made. Miyake’s cutting technique is highly Eastern, inspired by Vionnet and Poiret however his draping and concept of material and movement is Western. However, rather than assosciating with one of these cultures, Miyake directs his attention to the co-existence of the fabric and the body. With his ‘peeling away’ Miyake was F/W 1995 ultimately rebelling against haute couture. Fascinated by native costume and inspired by his world travels, the designer works to bring all stages of design development into one single vision.

Image: Noriaki Yokosuka, 1975.

FANS SAY... 1. How did you first come across Issey Miyake? 2. Would you consider yourself a ‘fan’? if so then why? 3. Do you have any certain emotions or feelings towards the designer and his work? 4. How long have you had your Issey Miyake piece/s? have they kept well? how do the pleats feel? 5. Are you aware of Miyake’s technical process when making his pleats garments?

Above: Diana Vreeland in her foreword for ‘East Meets West’ Left: Mark Holborn, writer of ‘Irving Penn regards the work of Issey Miyake’

Above: Dean Hoy, Fashion Student on why he dislikes Miyake. Left: OLDPRADA tumblr user, Fan.

Interview with the host of the Issey Miyake Fan Club. 1. Why are you such a big fan of Miyake? 2 How did you first come across him? 3. What does hosting the Issey Miyake fan page require of you? 4. How many followers do you have? 5. Do you get asked to do interviews often? 6. Have you got any other social media? 7. How long have you been a fan? 8. Has your obsession gone further than having a fan page for