Issey Miyake is the definitive monograph on a designer who didn't merely challenge fashion conventions but dismantled them — tracing his material and technical evolution from the earliest pre-studio work through to 2022, across 460 pages of extraordinary documentary photography.
About This Book
Initiated and conceived by editor Midori Kitamura, who drew on nearly fifty years of collaborative work with Miyake, this encyclopedic volume maps the designer's singular approach to clothing through the lens of material innovation and technique. From the A Piece of Cloth concept to the Body Series of the 1980s, the Miyake Pleats series, and the enduring Pleats Please line, the book traces a design philosophy that fused poetry with function, and tradition with modern technology. Cultural figure Kazuko Koike contributes a far-reaching essay that assembles a complete chronology of Miyake's work alongside an intimate personal profile — a rare combination of scholarly rigour and biographical depth. For fashion historians, designers, and students of material culture, this is an indispensable reference.
Key Features
- 460 pages of documentary and studio photography capturing Miyake's clothes in their quotidian originality
- Edited by Midori Kitamura; essay by Kazuko Koike
- Case studies include A Piece of Cloth, Body Series, Miyake Pleats series, and Pleats Please
- Published by Taschen, 2022
What You'll Discover
- How Miyake's material experiments — texture, structure, and pleating — evolved before and beyond the Miyake Design Studio
- The relationship between everyday wearability and conceptual ambition in works like Pleats Please
- Kazuko Koike's complete chronology of Miyake's career, from his teenage inspirations through six decades of practice
- The philosophical underpinning of the A Piece of Cloth concept and its influence on Miyake's approach to the body
About the Author
Midori Kitamura worked alongside Issey Miyake for nearly fifty years, making her one of the closest collaborators and most authoritative voices on his practice. Her editorial framework for this volume reflects that depth of access and understanding. Kazuko Koike, described as a leading cultural figure, contributes the book's primary essay and chronology.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 460
- Dimensions: 15.6 x 21.7 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783754402863
- Publisher: Taschen
- Publication Date: 2022
Perfect For: Fashion designers and historians, students of material culture and textile innovation, architecture and design practitioners interested in the intersection of form and function, and serious collectors of Taschen monographs.