Issey Miyake creative director Yoshiyuki Miyamae has been looking at the natural world for inspiration of late. Pre-Fall is no exception. This season it was our sun itself that inspired him, but the results here were less literal and more graphic than at his recent runway collection—a positive development. There were no photo prints, for example, but there were orderly, curving rows of polka dots on a group of pieces made with the label’s proprietary baked stretch technique. Other looks made with transfer printing featured still more orbs backed by a fine grid pattern in the pleats’ gussets. Some of these pieces were actually cut in a circular shape.
Miyamae’s approach is methodical; he’s as much a lab scientist as he is a designer. Take those arabesques of dots. Up until now, the company could only achieve straight pleats via baked stretch. Now they do curves. It’s a subtle difference to be sure, but subtlety has its rewards. A case in point was a very fine blazer made from a cotton thread woven in a Japanese Sashiko technique that was then steam pleated. With its frayed edges, it evoked tweed, but it remains remarkably light, making it ideal for travel. All of Miyamae’s stuff is genius for packing, including the season’s new top-handle leather bag, which deconstructs completely flat. Very clever.
