Designed For Life: A Retrospective On The Work Of Issy Miyake

How do you create a meaningful article of clothing in the seemingly endless landscape of fashion—a landscape where at some point in time everything has been thought of or created? 

Issey Miyake’s approach to answering this crucial question is what has cemented him as one of the all-time greats. His process and design philosophy was like none other, and it yielded garments that looked out of this world, yet seamlessly integrated into everyday life. From the Miyake Design Studio website, “Issey Miyake’s ‘monozukuri’ or way of making things is an ongoing quest via research and experimentation for new innovations that can be harnessed, free from existing conventions.”

Miyake envisioned clothes fit for everyone, meant to be worn and embraced. He saw his clothes as items to be danced in, lived in, and loved. He believed in using good, meaningful design to make people’s lives better. Miyake’s iconic pleated garments stand as his most recognizable creation, wholeheartedly embodying his design philosophy and vision in creating clothes that were truly accepting.

Art by Sisel Gelman

Miyake was born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1938 and was a student of Hubert de Givenchy in Paris after studying at the Tama Art University in Tokyo. In 1970, he returned to Japan to found the Miyake Design Studio, a place that would become his professional home for the rest of his life. On August 9, 2022, it was announced that the revolutionary designer had passed away from cancer at the age of 84. 

Miyake presented his first full collection in Paris in 1973, three years after founding his design studio. There, he would start countless brands including Bao Bao Issey Miyake, which is known by its instantly recognizable geometric bags and accessories. In 1994, his iconic pleated clothing first launched through Pleats Please Issey Miyake, which was expanded to a men’s line in 2013 with the introduction of Homme Plissé Issey Miyake. He famously designed the black turtleneck shirts Steve Jobs wore. 

Miyake worked outside of standing conventions in the fashion industry, and he championed technology in his design process to create thoroughly new items. His pleated clothes are one of his best examples of combining technological innovation and traditional techniques. His famous brand Pleats Please Issey Miyake was launched in 1993 (Miyake had been making machine-made pleats since 1988, but the first standalone pleats-focused line was launched in 1993).

Pleats Please presented light, flowing garments, bursting with color, complimented by the instantly recognizable garment pleats (‘garment pleat’ refers to a pleat over the entire garment, as opposed to a small section). Miyake worked for years to perfect the process of creating practically indestructible pleats that covered the entire garment. These pleats would become the foundation of some of his most revolutionary and celebrated garments. Not only were they fantastic for creating wild and wonderful shapes on the runway, but their light and stretchy nature allowed traditional garments to come to life when being worn. Large dresses danced and bounced along with models as they walked, emphasizing the connection Miyake saw between clothes and the people wearing them.

The technique of pleating clothing has been around for ages, long before Miyake began his endeavors. At its most basic and utilitarian, a pleat was a technique used to better shape clothing around the body or create volume and texture within a garment. A simple pleat involves folds within a pattern piece that are often pressed with heat and then sewn into place. This is done with the understanding that the vast majority of pleats, especially over a cotton or wool textile and without sufficient sewn support, are fairly delicate and subject to flattening or unfolding—especially a full garment pleat such as those seen on Issey Miyake’s clothes. In couture and dressmaking, pleats can add a simple and elegant texture to a finished piece. In men’s clothing, pleats have been used as a more practical way to fit garments (a nod to the undying norm in menswear where function rules over fashion). Knowing how pleats are traditionally made and used is critical in understanding how Issey Miyake revolutionized the practice.

If you have ever held a pleated Issey Miyake piece, you would recognize two distinct traits of his clothes. Firstly, the fabric is extremely light but not soft or smooth to the touch, unlike a natural fiber such as cotton. Secondly, the garment pleats are practically indestructible. They can be stretched, pressed, sat on, and squished, but they’ll instantly bounce back to their pleated form. This was made possible by innovations in fabric technology, and Miyake developing an entirely new process of heat-pressed pleating. All of his pleated garments are 100 percent polyester, which aids in the pleats holding their shape, as polyester is a synthetic polymer, not a natural fiber. When the fabric is heated and then pressed, the polymer acts as a finely woven plastic: it softens with heat, the fold is applied, and then it holds its shape as it cools.

Miyake and his design studio fully developed the pleating machines used for all of their clothing. By recontextualizing the use of pleats in modern dress, Issey Miyake created some of the simplest yet visually striking pieces in recent memory: pieces such as the Minaret dress, where colorful pleated fabric was shaped by hoops from the waistline down, evoking the image of a tall tower, which would sway and gently bounce when worn. Many of Miyake’s clothes took inspiration from architecture; they were more shaped and structural rather than draped. The full effect of his work can only be experienced when his clothes are worn, a seamless symbiosis between humans and clothing, where living and breathing sculptures emerge.

In a manifesto of how Miyake saw his clothes, every seasonal presentation for Pleats Please and Homme Plissé rejects the notion of a dull runway show or catwalk. Instead, dancers and gymnasts flood an open stage where they perform wonderfully choreographed dances and routines. In an age where fashion has become more consumerist than ever before, Issey Miyake champions the belief that clothes, lived in and loved, should last a lifetime.