JAPANESE CULTURE, EXPLAINED
三宅一生
Issey Miyake (1938–2022) treated clothing as a relationship between fabric, the body and the space between them. Material development, manufacturing and movement all belonged to his practice. The individual designer, his collaborators and the continuing namesake businesses require separate attribution.
After studying couture in Paris and gaining ready-to-wear experience in New York, Miyake established his design studio in 1970. Collections followed in New York in 1971 and Paris in 1973. His work considered garments within people’s activities, linking material and production choices with the shape and movement of clothing.
The flat textile and three-dimensional body leave an intervening space that changes with movement. This framework does not require every garment to remain uncut or seamless. Textile designer Makiko Minagawa and other collaborators contributed expertise in materials, connecting craft knowledge and industrial development.
Rather than pleating cloth before cutting and sewing, Miyake’s product-pleating approach cuts and sews the garment first, then applies the pleats. Shape and texture develop together. Experiments from 1988, costumes for Frankfurt Ballet in 1991 and the 1993 PLEATS PLEASE brand are connected but distinct stages.
A schematic sequence for this method, not a rule for all clothing.
Jointly developed with Dai Fujiwara in 1998, A-POC explored clothing within integrated material production using computer instructions. The named brand followed in 1999. It is neither a renamed conventional paper pattern nor ordinary 3D printing. Project development and brand announcement mark different events.
The National Art Center’s 2016 exhibition identified processes and collaborators as well as works. Today’s A-POC ABLE is developed by an engineering team led by Yoshiyuki Miyamae. The continuation of the business after Miyake’s death in 2022 does not make every subsequent design his personal work.
No. It concerns the relationship of textile, body and intervening space.
The garment is cut and sewn before pleating.
No. Individual, collaborative and later team authorship need to be distinguished.