Issey Miyake has obtained legendary status in the fashion world, with his multitudinous labels garnering a cult following. On 4 April, the brand will open its first multi-label store, Issey Miyake Marunouchi, in Tokyo.

Featuring 6 Issey labels (although sadly not the iconic Pleats Please), the store focuses on the contract between history and the future. The Tokujin Yoshioka-designed space is themed around the colour red, with a sleek, luxurious feel to compliment Miyake’s minimalist aesthetic.

The brands included in the store cover just about anything you could imagine. From In-Ei, which uses materials from recycled polyester, to 132 5., which creates clothes through algorithms, the focus remains on Mr Miyake’s pioneering approach to sustainability in fashion.

isseymiyake.com

Tags: Issey Miyake

These visually stunning animals are more than just cute – they are the latest of 20 visual series’ from Issey Miyake’s legendary Pleats Please.  Taku Satoh’s models include pandas, cats, horses and other animals. Designed to highlight concerns for the environment and natural ecosystems, the 3D figures also underline the unlimited potential of the Pleats Please fabric, which is light in weight and easy to wear. These animals follow on from last year’s flowers series, which has received accolades such as the Gold Prize in the design category at the 92nd New York Art Directors Club.

isseymiyake.com

Tags: Issey Miyake, Model Animals, Pleats Please

There’s no escaping it any longer, the Christmas season is upon us. To celebrate, Issey Miyake has created a limited edition animated typeface to make sending holiday messages much more playful this year. Each letter of the alphabet is allocated a unique sound, so that every message will contain a one-of-a-kind melody. Create your own at isseymiyake.com/message.

If you take a closer look at the typography, you’ll see limited-edition products from six of the Issey Miyake brands that feature Araishu, a traditional colour of Japanese lacquerware. The holiday products, which include tops, bags and wallets, are now available from the recently opened Issey Miyake flagship store in London.

Issey Miyake Flagship, 10 Brook Street London W1S 1BG

isseymiyakelondon.com

Tags: christmas, Issey Miyake

Next in our series we find ourselves at the glamorous Issey Miyake AW14 show. This time we give you a glimpse of what happened, both on the catwalk and backstage during Paris Fashion Week.

Photography: Masao Yufu

Tags: AW14, Issey Miyake, Paris Fashion Week

Matches, the very British luxury shopping destination, with an exciting international outlook are renowned for their dedication to creativity and originality, as well as bringing the most globally sought after designers to their customer. With their fashion exclusives including the likes of Burberry Prorsum, Saint Laurent and Azzedine Alaia, it’s the place to buy key wardrobe hits every season.

For the upcoming AW they have the perfect arm candy on offer, from cool classics to cutting edge, and we’ve chosen the favourites from matchesfashion.com.
The bag above the text is the Pelican satchel bag by Alexander Wang.

Words by: Felicity Carter

Balenciaga, Giant City bag

Bao Bao Issey Miyake, Lucent shopper

Burberry Prorsum, Blaze studded patent-leather bag

Jil Sander, Neptuno leather bowling bag

Mark Cross, Scottie satchel bag

Saint Laurent, Sac du Jour ponyhair tote

Tags: Alexander Wang, Balenciaga, Burberry, Issey Miyake, Jil Sander, Mark Cross, matchesfashion.com, Saint Laurent

Opening today, the Design Museum’s Extraordinary Stories About Ordinary Things is a love letter to the often overlooked design details of everyday life.

Thanks to its exploration of contemporary design and architecture, the exhibition not only examines furniture objects, but also fashion designs from the 1970s to the 1990s — in specific the Issey Miyake 132 5. collection, constructed out of a single piece of recycled plastic, which acts as both a folded two-dimensional object and a three-dimensional garment.

“Issey Miyake’s work tries to find a balance between the practical and the beautiful, a concept that is as relevant today as it was when he started the fashion house. His constant experimentation with both forms and also production has kept him at the peak of international fashion and design,” comments the presentation’s curator Gemma Curtain.

Getting a new perspective on the seemingly ordinary is always a visual delight, and this exhibition does its task more than justice.

Extraordinary Stories About Ordinary Things is on display at the Design Museum, 28 Shad Thames, London, SE1 2YD.

designmuseum.org

Tags: design museum, Extraordinary Stories About Ordinary Things, Issey Miyake

When Japanese visionaries Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto stormed the catwalks in the early Eighties they redefined fashion. The androgyny of their architectural shapes not only blew apart how women in Europe dressed, but succeeded in turning fashion into art.

Thirty years on and Japanese fashion continues to challenge Western notions of beauty and the Barbican’s new exhibition, ‘Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion’ charts the history and impact of the country’s inimitable style.

As Kate Bush, Head of Barbican Art Galleries says: “The tight silhouettes of Western couture were jettisoned for new fluid shapes. Out went the magnificent ornament and extravagant techniques of the post-war tradition and in came a stark, monochrome palette and an entirely new decorative language – holes, rips, frays and tears – emerging from the stuff of fabric itself.”

An epic journey through Japanese fashion history, featuring over 100 beautiful pieces by labels such as Comme des Garcons and Junya Watanabe – courtesy of the Kyoto Costume Institute – as well as catwalk footage and archive interviews, the exhibition dazzles the senses. Spanning the grand masters to the new radicals of Japanese design, it’s the story of an avant-garde fashion culture where breathtaking beauty and innovation are all part of the same rapid beating heart.

‘Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion’ is at the Barbican Centre until 6 February 2010.
Barbican.org/JapaneseFashion

Images by Lyndon Douglas. Words by Boudicca Fox-Leonard.

Tags: barbican, Comme des Garcon, Future Beauty, Issey Miyake, Japanese Fashion, Junya Watanabe, Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto