“I am neither a writer nor a theorist. For a person who creates things, saying too many words means regulating oneself, and it is a frightening prospect “, said Issey Miyake (pictured above, alongside a series of garments inspired by national flags). The Japanese designer, sublime mind, one of the most enduring and prolific inventors of contemporary fashion, he passed away on August 5 in Tokyo at the age of 84 due to hepatocellular carcinoma. In silence, with the calm full of strength and the shy attitude that has always characterized him. An official communication from the maison and the Miyake Design Studio, which he founded in 1970, and nothing more: not a funeral or other commemorations.
The sign of the innovator
Fashion loses an authentic innovator, who defined his business with infinite pragmatism and meaningful simplicity making things, do things. No tricks, deceptions, fanfare or storytelling, as used today to disguise a general lack of attention and lack of attention to the design of the objects, to their shape. On the contrary, a spasmodic study of materials and constructions. Miyake’s main obsession has always been the idea of creating garments that perfectly fit the needs of the wearer, making life easier. He never needed too much theory, or absurd claims, to do that. Issey Miyake was a progressive: never nostalgic, never retro, never repetitive. Resolutely grounded in the moment, he continued to look forward rather than back, fueling his reflections with a keen awareness of traditions and the past.
Purity of forms and search for essentiality
Miyake, in fact, has shaped the future of clothing by reconnecting with ancestral and almost primordial forms in their purity, adding a technological twist. His research was driven by the impulse to create radical clothing solutions that respond to specific functions: creative but practical shapes, things that make existence simple. This balance between creativity and pragmatism was an unprecedented creative achievement, considering how much designers can let themselves be carried away by the pleasure of sacrificing function to form in the name of originality. Indeed, it was the sign of Miyake’s excellence, appreciated and awarded all over the world.
A magical encounter between cultures, between East and West
He was the first fashion designer to land on the cover of Artforum with a rattan bodysuit. Pleats Please, Apoc and Homme Plissè have rewritten the general way of dressing. The spectrum of Issey Miyake’s research was vast and personal, with an adamantine underlying coherence given by the desire to focus on the person, not the designer’s ego. In his unshakable respect for the human being, Miyake was a solitary figure: a silent herald of deeply humanistic values. His work has not focused on formality, elegance or mere form, but on human needs and how a designer can respond to them, radically. Following this path, Miyake has adopted the perspective and position of a pure designer, creating not clothes, but tools that allow the wearer to face social life without feeling disguised or, worse, possessed by uncomfortable and oppressive clothes. In this psychological subtlety, Issey Miyake has worked a miraculous intersection of cultures, eras and styles, marrying East and West, past and future. To fuel his creative process, something as simple as curiosity. “It is out of curiosity that we move forward, because it will always lead us to the next development,” he used to say. He will miss such a brilliant mind, the liveliness of the gaze, the openness.