How to describe the unique sound of a “Kankisenthizer,” a new musical instrument deployed at today’s Issey Miyake show? This reviewer’s best efforts included “Jean Michel Jarre conducts a kazoo orchestra,” and “a mournful cow on Auto-Tune,” but neither quite capture the seismic majesty of this contraption, made up of 10 exhaust fans rigged via photosensitive sensors to transmit sound via light.
As for the clothes, in the hands of Yoshiyuki Miyamae, these iterations of Issey Miyake at first improvised very appealingly on the house standards of kaleidoscopic linear overload corralled by pleat. The so-called Baked Stretch opening section of glue-printed heated-fabric dresses and trousers in can’t-miss color combinations were fabulous to watch and looked delightful to wear. A dress of yellow and purple that accordioned up and down with the jaunty gait of its walker seemed to be just a little alive.
Around halfway through, as musicians Ei Wada and Haruka Yoshida used the Kankisenthizer to tackle Pachelbel’s Canon, the palette became more muted and the clothes less compelling. A black section featuring abstract insulating outerwear followed a glimpse of reddish shirting over sweet jodphur-shorts: Neither were all that. Happily, the tempo (of the clothes) gathered pace again with a series of ingeniously fashioned spiral-pleated pieces whose natural puckered structures allowed for some interestingly modular shapes. Then came a mighty red cape, just before the finale, as the Kankisenthizer blessedly emitted its last rumbling gasp.
