An Issey Miyake show is an education, but in the gentlest way. The pitch is usually intimidatingly academic; the execution is always enthrallingly intimate. Today, the foundation of the collection was taping, so basic to the manufacture of clothes, but here transformed on the runway before our eyes into an exercise in pure form. In a matter of seconds, black-clad assistants folded and stapled paper tape, origamilike, into five items of clothing: a tailcoat, a dress, a skirt, a peplum jacket, a collar. Models wearing these paper garments were followed by other girls wearing fabric versions of the same look. It was an inventive insight into the process of design. But that is typical of Miyake designer Dai Fujiwara. This was his last collection after five years as creative director. In a week where good-byes have been very much on fashion's mind, his was one that you wished more people had taken the opportunity to experience.
After the prototype experiment, Fujiwara offered variants on the taped shapes and the houndstooth and herringbone patterns that the folding created. A pixelated houndstooth on a jacket was abstracted on the skirt beneath. Huge padded Vs made an angular puffer vest. Fujiwara drew on the work of artist M.C. Escher to create optical-illusion jacquards. One drop-waisted dress wove ribbons into chevrons and let the ribbons float untrimmed. It was a lyrical effect. But no more so than a dress that layered diaphanous fabric so light its colors seemed to be shifting before your eyes. It might be the most beautiful piece of the week. And if the planets align in some more sensible way, Dai should eventually be able to look back on his five years at Miyake as a pioneering moment in fashion, where thought and deed were united in an inspiringly humanist package.
