Could Issey Miyake’s Yusuke Takahashi have known in advance that he would be staging his Spring show in a Paris university quadrant on a day when the temperature topped 90 degrees Fahrenheit? Well, yes, that’s the point of weather reports—and the reason Takahashi didn’t draft in a layer of polyurethane to protect us from theoretical showers. Instead, the sun burned, perspiration beaded and dripped, and globules of sweat suspended from hairs and trickled uncomfortably down scorched skin, as models paraded in his collection. They quivered in the heat like mirages, the air throbbing. The clothes were inspired by India. How appropriate.
It was also a built-in advertising opportunity. Who in the audience didn’t wish they were wearing Takahashi’s opening looks: easy and breezy, wide-cut tunics and capacious trousers in subtly crumpled and rumpled monochrome fabrics—Japanese in design, Indian in inspiration, but with a decided Italian or Iberian undertone, like a Vittorio De Sica scene, or a still from Suddenly, Last Summer?
Neither were intentional. As ever, the obsession at Miyake was manipulation of fabric, techy treatments, intentional pleating and creasing. As the show progressed, color crept in: the patterns and hues of Holi—the festival of colors—were hand-printed across cotton, wool, and hemp modal, the pale suits blossoming into brilliant color. Shots of imperial blue or sulphur yellow had a visceral force. Prints varied: Some were abstract, misty watercolor notions; others were brilliantly multicolored marble prints, comprising five to ten printing blocks per design. After all that black and white, they popped. Yet it was the actual fabrics themselves—the touch, not the look—that made the biggest impact. Intentionally creased means non-iron; others resisted creases. A minimum of fuss—including buttons, zips, and most formal forms of fastening—both simplified and streamlined. It made the clothes look both antique and modern.
Issey Miyake garments—those designed by Takahashi, and before—have always been tied in with those ideas of modern living, connecting the aesthetic with the animate. You can’t look good if you don’t feel good. And, as uncomfortable physically as this show was to watch, the fresh, summery, and hence immediate appeal of the clothes won through. Which is rare, given how summer and winter have blurred, at least on the runway. You wanted to strip off, and step into these garments. And maybe flay a layer of skin off too, to cool down. But Takahashi can’t be held accountable for that.
