Miyake, born for design

As a pioneer of Japanese designers who broke into the Paris fashion industry in the 1970s, he has been brave in innovation all his life. Miyake is good at applying traditional handicrafts to modern clothing, which is taken from Japan, but has the ability to face the world.

The space between cloth and body creates clothing

Originally folded from cloth to origami, it expanded from two-dimensional to three-dimensional - this is the charm of Miyake's design. Miyake, a fashion designer, is an important figure on the world fashion stage. His exploration of novel design is believed to have brought earth-shaking revolutionary power to the western fashion industry in the 1970s.

Miyake was born in Hiroshima in 1938. When he was young, he was fascinated by the clothes in the window of the tailor's shop on his way home, and became a fashion designer. After graduating from the Tama University of Fine Arts in Tokyo, he went to Paris Fashion School for further study.

He exhibited his first series in 1971. His new ideas and new ideas in the design caused a revolutionary impact on the self-styled western fashion industry at that time, and thus laid the foundation for his future development.

"I have always believed that the space between the fabric and the body created the clothing. After manual folding, we created a new and irregular undulating space." Miyake described his design concept in the documentary.

He chose to visualize this idea in the form of expression, that is, in the early planning of the series, all members replaced the design draft with origami. "An important problem with the 'origami' series is that they cannot be drawn."

From an origami laid flat on the desktop, through manual manipulation, it instantly changed from two-dimensional to three-dimensional form—— This is the root of the origami series. In fact, this is the same as the inspiration of the original "piece of cloth" of Miyake. With the help of "body to wear clothes" - the "body" is subtly regarded as "the medium of playing with the" piece of paper ", the cloth is changed in this way, and finally becomes the posture of the clothes we see today.

The idea of Miyake's life, Akira Kuragawa, a famous Japanese architect, once mentioned in his book "The Eight Aesthetic Consciousness of Japan": "The Japanese feel the external world through the whole body, and the sense of harmony with the world is concentrated and converged in the development and use of the material, and the material is brought into play as a result. In short, it pays attention to the vividness and flexibility of the material." This is the design of ISSEY MIYAKE.

"I'm not designing fashion for fashion, I'm just designing clothes." Miyake expressed his attitude very clearly. In his idea, the first theme of real clothing cannot be separated from the word "comfort".

So, what is the so-called comfort level? This documentary shows us this in a very special way - a large number of dance clips have been added to it - almost every ten minutes, there will be a segment of dancers dancing in the camera wearing ISSEY MIYAKE series clothes.

As we all know, dancers have strict requirements on the clothes they wear when they dance. How comfortable is the design of ISSEY MIYAKE in this direct, distinct and interesting way—— The result is self-evident. In addition, the arrangement of this dance segment is also very easy to recall the experience of Miyake in the 1990s when he created a performance dress for the Frankfurt Ballet.

In 1991, a dancer from the Frankfurt Ballet wore the dress of ISSEY MIYAKE

In addition, it is interesting to note that in many advertising blockbusters of ISSEY MIYAKE in the past, the case of showing the intimate theme of "design and body" by dancers has also appeared many times, which can also be regarded as a continuation.

Japanese aesthetics cannot be separated from the combination of craft and mind

The legend of Miyake's life lies in his creativity of drawing inspiration from traditional Japanese elements and combining with modern fashion - which he regards as a sign of his unique style. In the early years, for example, the silhouette frame was extracted from the armor of the Japanese samurai, or the traditional drapery, wrapping, winding, folding and other methods were used from the kimono, so as to create works that are highly consistent with the human body, simple in shape and highly creative.

Miyake attributed this inspiration to his admiration for Japanese traditional culture. As mentioned in the documentary, he will travel around Japan all the year round to communicate with local factories and craftsmen. In the film, an old craftsman who made Japanese style and paper with traditional techniques is also mentioned in particular. The latter still insists on his own creation through the nearly lost paper-making technology, which makes Miyake deeply admire and is also the person he most often visits.

"Japanese aesthetics, including for Japanese, cannot be separated from the combination of craftsmanship and mind. This is the novelty of our clothing." Whether it is the early works of Miyake or the series presented today, he always insists on combining traditional and modern technology to create new value. "When using Japanese fabrics, I found my own style. I think the simplicity of Japanese culture is very beautiful," he said.

Even in the effort, it seems to be a waste of time

"I believe we still have hope". In addition to documenting the design and work status of Miyake, the documentary also depicts the designer's rigorous attitude from the perspective of the team. In the second half of the documentary, the photographer left the camera to two young people in the team: Bancang and Yangu. Bancang, who is good at folding design and has engineering background, his "five-storey pagoda" - with the design of tubular folds, has won the high praise of Miyake. "This is very interesting and a new situation." Miyake commented.

In contrast, the design of Yangu is "not ideal". After three times of overthrow and reconstruction, Sanzhai has been ruthlessly and severely evaluated several times, which is his principle of "facing problems directly".

In the face of the continuous efforts of younger generations, Miyake regards them as the hope of the future, "I keep thinking about how to promote their progress. Because they are the future. I will tell them, for example, that doing so can express more. We do not pursue the trend, but express our ideas. Even in the present, it seems that all efforts are like wasting time. I also believe that we still have a glimmer of hope. This is what I want."

Food affects the body and clothing affects the mind. Miyake always insists on breaking away from the definition of "fashion" for his design - his design is only for the body, not for the trend. "I hope that when people see my design, they will think of 'great, finally have such clothes'." He sighed at the end of the documentary.

Source: iFASHION Weekend Pictorial