The season we are moving through has already seen a couple of interestingly progressive sci-fi flavored propositions. The idea of looking several seasons forward, instead of just a few months, seems especially smart right now. Today however, this collection gave a timely reminder that when it comes to floating beyond the realms of the contemporary, Issey Miyake is eternal.
On a Zoom from Tokyo through his excellent translator, Satoshi Kondo said, “I wanted to integrate elements from nature as they are, and as we find them,” then added that he wanted to amplify these elements “through the technology, the idea, and the ingenuity” that has long been fostered within the house.
While the result was not declaratively sci-fi—despite those fantastic circular cut-out pleated pieces being entitled Monochrome Planet—it was simultaneously otherworldly and timeless. To fanboy for a second, a parallel lurks in the Star Wars saga’s chronological setting being hundreds of years in the past, while its aesthetic and technological expression seems (even decades later) futuristic.
Key pieces included dresses in squares of fabric whose monolith simplicity bent to the body via panels of elastic threading on the torso. Beautiful prints reminiscent of river-eroded stones were created through a 1,500-year-old dye-dropping technique called suminagashi (Kondo shared images of the making process on our Zoom) that originated in Fukui Prefecture. These were then used in a tight collection of smoothly silhouetted garments. Shirtdresses and trench-jumpsuits in raw wool and bulbously puckered looks in black—especially with that bathing cap—resembled the uniform issued to the crew of some chic vegan space mission: Goop x SpaceX. There were more earthbound pieces here too; in fact, this was a collection rooted in its earthiness, but as so often Miyake’s orbit was unique unto itself and unlike all else.
