09/08/2022
Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake has died aged 84. The Hiroshima bombing survivor was seven years old when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb in history on his hometown.
A graduate of the Tama University of Fine Arts in Tokyo, arrived in Paris in 1965. Determined to leave his mark on the fashion capital, he enrolled at the School of the Parisian Couture Union Chamber. “My early years in Paris were important to me as they served as a springboard for my career, notions of beauty and aesthetics of the human body remain too rigid for me. Fortunately, perceptions are upset by the wind of freedom that blew in 1968,” he said. After graduating, he worked for and Hubert de , which has influenced his early work.
His unique style considers fashion through the prism of art, more precisely the plastic arts. From the start, he used the technique of origami, the art of folding paper to create precise shapes, to create collections with recognizable volumes and unparalleled freedom of movement. This is how pleating becomes his trademark. By the early 1980s, he had spread his style around the world using materials never before seen in , such as plastic or paper.
he retired in 1997, saying he wanted to devote himself fully to research. “You have to know how to hand over to the next generations, children represent the future” Issey Miyake liked to repeat. And indeed in the spring of 1999, his strongest gesture will be in the direction of tomorrow, he will withdraw from the front of the fashion scene in favor of his assistants.
In the 2000s, many contemporary designers such as , , , and - followed his path and chose to let go of the creative reins of the eponymous house they had founded. Driven by the feeling of having said everything… Issey Miyake revolutionised fashion with his inventiveness and quest for modernity.
