TOKYO — Japanese designer Issey Miyake, best known for his pleated garments and cult perfumes, who became a worldwide synonym for cutting-edge fashion in the 1980s, died Friday in Tokyo. he was 84 years old.
The cause of death was liver cancer, it was announced Tuesday by Miyake Design Studio.
Miyake is perhaps best known for his first micro-pleats, introduced in 1988, but has recently seen a surge in popularity among new and younger consumer demographics.
With his unique heat treatment system, his accordion-like pleats are machine washable, retain their shape, and offer ease of loungewear. He also made the black turtleneck that became part of Apple co-founder Steve his Jobs signature look.
His Bao Bao bag, made from a mesh fabric layered with small colorful triangles of polyvinyl, has long been the choice of the creative industry.
Released in 1993, Pleats Pleats, a clothing line featuring waterfalls of razor-sharp pleats, became his most famous look.
Miyake’s designs popped up everywhere from the factory floor (he designed the uniforms for the employees of Japan’s electronics giant Sony) to the dance floor. His insistence that clothing is a form of design was considered avant-garde early in his career, with notable collaborations with photographers and architects. His design was featured on his Artforum cover in 1982 (a fashion unprecedented for his designer at the time) and made it into the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Miyake was acclaimed in Japan for creating a global brand that contributed to Japan’s efforts to become an international destination for fashion and pop culture. In 2010, he received the Order of Culture, the country’s highest honor for the arts.
Issei Miyake was born on April 22, 1938. He developed a noticeable limp as a result of surviving the atomic bomb dropped on his hometown of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. His mother died of radiation poisoning three years after her.
Miyake rarely spoke about the day, or other aspects of his personal history. .
1963 Graduated from the Design Department of Tama Art University. He studied in Paris during the 1968 student movement, and after spending some time in New York, in 1970 Miyake founded his design studio. He introduced Japanese fashion to the world and opened the door to later generations such as Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo.
He often emphasized that he does not consider himself a “fashion designer”.
“What’s in fashion quickly goes out of fashion. I don’t make fashion. I make clothes,” Miyake told Paris Voice magazine in 1998.
“What I wanted to create was not just clothes for the rich. Jeans, T-shirts, and other items that many people are familiar with, easy to wash, and easy to use,” said a 2015 Yomiuri Shimbun. he said in an interview.
Yet he was perhaps best known as a designer whose style combined the discipline of fashion with technology and art. was. He pursued designs that incorporated new techniques and fabrics (such as the famous pleat) to achieve his ambitions.
More information about Miyake’s survivors was not immediately available. Famous as an individual, he was known for his close relationships with his longtime colleagues and collaborators, believing them to be essential to his success. He was closest to Midori Kitamura, who started out as a model for Fit in his studio, worked with him for nearly 50 years, and is now president of his design studio.
“Throughout his life, Miyake never took a step back from the love that is the process of making things,” Miyake’s office said in a statement.
Miyake told The Times in 2014:
Hida Hikari Contributed a report from Tokyo.