You know what you’re going to get at Issey Miyake—a romantic technicality invented by the original Issey Miyake decades ago that’s in tune with the now—and this season, it delivered, yet again, albeit without quite transmitting the soaring wearable stanzas of collections past.
The collection was entitled Feeling the Wind, which those childish isolationists in the British section (hey, including me) couldn’t help tittering at. The loose tailoring in ripped-patterned tiger stripes over black, the dégradé texture knits, and the knit horizontally paneled trousers were all fine. A sports suit in navy patterned with irregular folds reminded me of my T-shirts when they come out of the suitcase every morning after three weeks on the road.
The long wool jackets cut in fringe-edged strips that would indeed feel the wind were prettily frilled. The gust of paint-swirl color print in the second half of the show added an excitement that had previously only been hinted at in gentle flurries, suppressed by a surprising reliance on tailoring from a house that so often works beyond it. This collection didn’t blow you away. But it was fair enough sailing.
