Reinventing ‘A Piece of Cloth’: The Works of Issey Miyake

*Published in the July 2016 issue of the Filipino-Japanese Journal

“The act of design and its process are synonymous with excitement and joy.” 

–Issey Miyake

Japanese designer Issey Miyake is well-known for his out-of-the-box ideas translated into avante-garde collections created all through out his almost 50-year old career (and still counting). And as what these collections reflect, every piece of cloth has a story. These stories are brilliantly told in a recent display of his creations titled, “Miyake Issey Exhibition: The Work of Miyake Issey” held at The National Art Center, Tokyo from March 16 – June 13, 2016. 

Official poster of the exhibition

Issey Miyake went to Paris in 1965 to continue honing his skills in the field. In 1968, he witnessed the May ‘68 protests where young people expressed their sentiments against authoritarianism. This experience inspired him to “create clothing like jeans and t-shrits that can be worn by everyone.” This is when he started expoloring the relationship between “a piece of cloth”, the body and the space between them. Combining his love for research, his enthusiasm for experimenting on the use of new materials and his good grasp of Japanese traditional craftsmanship, he was able to develop a kind of signature style that is distinctively his own. Miyake explains his vision by saying that, “Every day, I imagine something new, create something that has never existed, and build a new reality.” But despite the spontaneous flow of diverse creative ideas, his basic principle remains the same, making clothes from “a piece of cloth.”

The exhibition, divided in three sections, showed how Miyake’s experiementation with clothes has progressed through the years. The spaces in Sections A and B were designed by TokujinYoshioka. Section A exhibited Miyake’s earlier works. He has continually sought new methods and technologies for making clothes since he established the Miyake Design Studio in 1970. Because of his forward-looking mindset, Miyake refuses to be bound by convention. Although he uses Japanese traditional crafts and materials as a starting point, he adds his own style by recreating the clothes into something more contemporary. Miyake and his team experiment with ways to turn their ideas into realities and then deliver the finished, tangible pieces to people who can fully utilize them. Some notable pieces in this section were the Shohana Momen, made from a frabric traditionally used to line men’s kimonos; Sashiko,  made from a quilted-fabric used for Judo uniforms and farmers’ work clothes; and Tanzen, a kimono-style coat with a tie-belt. 

In Section B, Miyake’s clothes were displayed on “Grid Bodies” that were specifically designed by Yoshioka for this exhibition. Because of Miyake’s vision to connect the cloth and the body, he created a body series from 1980-1984 that showcased materials that are uncommonly used for clothes like plastic and rattan shaped into wearable pieces. In 1980, Miyake displayed a new collection called Plastic Body for the Autumn/Winter collection. The pieces were made using fiber-reinforced plastic on a mold of a human torso. Two years after, he showcased Rattan Body for his Spring/Summer collection. Using the techniques of Shochikudo Kosuge, a Japanese artist from Hayama, Miyake sculpted rattan and bamboo materials into wearable forms, creating a contemporary interpretation of a Japanese samurai armor. This collection was also featured on the cover of an American art magazine, Art Forum, in February 1982. Needless to say, it is a notable achievement for a piece of clothing to be featured in an art magazine. Wire Body and Waterfal Body were released in Autumn/Winter 1983 and Autumn/Winter 1984 respectively.

The space in Section C, designed by Taku Satoh, was meant not only as a display space but also as an interactive space where visitors could try folding clothes with complex structures and watch demonstrations. This section exhibited five of the most innovative aspects of Miyake’s work. Right next to the entrance to this section, a row of Olympic Team uniforms were displayed. In the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Miyake was commissioned to design the uniforms of the athletes from Lithuania. From this experience, Miyake thought of showcasing the designs of ten more teams for his 1993 Spring/Summer collection. The Materials area showcased the different materials that Miyake used for making clothes like polyster, horsehair, ramie, rayon and silk. In the IKKO TANAKA-ISSEY MIYAKE area, pleated kimonos printed with basic shapes like circles and triangles neatly arranged to form an image of a Japanese woman’s face were on display. Dresses in the A-POC section were said to have  been created from a single piece of thread in a single process. Also exhibited in the Pleats area was the pleats machine used by Miyake in making his pleats designs. A special demonstration was held every morning during the exhibition. When making pleats, Miyake makes the clothes first and then feeds them through a heated pleating machine, contrary to the usual practice of creating pleating first and then turning the pleated fabrics into clothes. Miyake’s 132 5. ISSEY MIYAKE/IN-EI ISSEY MIYAKE collection showcased dresses with complex folding structures. 

In the last part of the exhibiton, there were also some short films about Miyake that were shown to the audience. First, there was a motion graphic called “Making Things” created by Yugo Nakamura and music composed by Cornelius. Other works shown were: The Work of Issey Miyake 1960-2015 directed by Shinya Nakajima; Beyond Time and Space directed by Yuriko Takagi; Visual Dialogue directed by Irving Penn; Waterfall Body and Kamiko directed and edited by Yu Yamanaka.

Miyake believes that clothing should not only enrich people’s lives but also bring joy to anyone who is wearing them – something that Miyake has done and has continued to do all these years. From a piece of cloth, he was able to visualize and revitalize a new clothing revolution that, as he says, “turns ideas into realities.”