For Resort, Issey Miyake creative director Yoshiyuki Miyamae and his team visited the tropics, collecting leaves, screw pines, and ferns along the way. (Where, exactly, is undisclosed: They'd prefer not to pin the season's inspiration to any particular place in the world.) From there, they developed a collection lush with deep, dark colors, then injected it with brighter moments.
Outerwear led the conversation. For the dramatic, a photoreal, green-on-red print of the tropical plant Alocasia was woven in a six-yarn jacquard technique, then fashioned into a trench that was cinched together at the waist with pleating. The loose silhouette of a reversible double-faced wool coat in chartreuse and cornflower blue lent it some subtlety.
The leaf idea moved beyond prints, with flappy trousers that could be worn three different ways: wrapped in the front or back, or just left hanging. The team also experimented with its 3-D stretch technique, using the "nut" pleat—which resembles a star anise—as a basis for the collection's more classic pieces, like a cropped high-neck jacket.
Perhaps the presumed humidity of the tropics was also on the mind, because this season marked the first time that some of the pleated garments were woven with natural fibers. A unique proposition for a label so set on developing everything new, but one that will please a customer who prefers the feel of cotton against her skin.
