How can human creation unify the diversity of humans? This was the underlying question beneath an Issey Miyake collection entitled Making Speaking, Speaking Making. The show was again directed by Daniel Ezralow, and the serried ranks of raised smartphones at the Lycée Carnot suggest the audience was hoping for a repeat of last season’s viral skyborne bouncing dress pay dirt. It did not quite happen, but even if not a monster hit, Ezralow’s expression of Satoshi Kondo’s collection was a pleasure to observe.
It started with an emphasis on individuality. The backdrop was a white sheet featuring a black outline of a human in an outfit. A man emerged and apparently painted a new outline alongside it. Both outlines were then torn from the wall to reveal a group of models in white garments whose seams and sides were edged in black lines: Walking murder scene silhouettes, or clothes patterns rendered straight to the body, these were made using a computer program to print seamless garments, named A-POC.
These lines mutated into a pattern in panels on garments suddenly colored, wide-lapelled, and made in a spongily scuba-ish material. The models came out in pairs wearing tractor-soled boots in which they moved around each other on the runway like potential dance partners. A loose black trench coat under a concave brimmed hat marked the end of this first section.
A small pause preceded a series of loose silk pieces featuring subtly arresting color play achieved through a technique the notes identified as decalcomania—a pressure applied patterning—and cut to allow the wearer to raise her arms and have her jacket or coat billow behind in the breeze like a parachute.
Then came a dress, skirt, and sweater called Kone Kone, which comprised rib-knit patches of red, gray, green, black, and yellow merged together, some loose checked pieces featuring quality printed contour lines, and a fringed and full knit dress shot through in its weave with countless different colors. Down full looks were comprised of modular, detachable parts: Pants featured slit, articulated knees. Paired with some serious base layers, these would make for interesting winter sportswear. Some full brownish pieces were cut in a blend of wool and paper and patterned with clay-inspired lines and markings.
Finally, after an appetite-whetter of aurora borealis–inspired garments featuring a snow print and flurries of fuzzy fringing, we hit the finale. This saw groups of models emerge wearing conjoined pieces of knitwear, sometimes as individuals and sometimes in groups as much as five strong. The colors began neutral, then turned Benetton bright, and each piece offered multiple arm, leg, and hand holes to allow its wearer(s) multiple choice dressing decisions. At the end all the models connected through these knits before meandering back and forth down the runway in a single Miyake-meshed mass of human and wool. This was an attractive collection whose presentation—from cutout characters to fully fleshed female community—was metaphorically meaningful too.
