In search of new silhouettes, the Homme Plissé Issey Miyake’s design team hit the road — journeying an hour-and-a-half outside Tokyo. There they pitched some tents, the arcing forms of which inspired the fall collection, called A Work of Arc.
“Actually putting posts through the fabric of the tent is like making many folds and creases in a pleated fabric,” explained Issey Miyake’s artistic director Satoshi Kondo, who with his colleagues (after a traditional camping trip curry meal) applied the findings to the brand’s pleated garments for fall.
The collection was full of strong, sculptural silhouettes with graceful movements and crafted meticulously. For one trouser model, rather than having the pleats run vertically or horizontally as is tradition for Homme Plissé, they run diagonally, intersecting in ridges arcing around the legs.
One voluminous jacket, in a pentagon shape, was composed of three main converging fabric pieces, each with a different pleat orientation that was inspired by the feeling of sitting inside a tent. The “flip coat” goes from long to short (or vice versa) with straps that can be fastened at the shoulders.
The collection pops with saturated colors, such as red, azure and orange. There’s one “lantern” print — inspired by the Stargazer tent and how lantern light glows through a tent fabric.
For the collection’s video presentation, the idea was to show the garments from various angles, so slow-motion footage had models doing things like jumping.
