POPULAR JAPANESE fashion house Issey Miyake recently celebrated the opening of its very first store in Bangkok with a grand bash at the newly renovated Siam Discovery where it now occupies a duplex boutique on G and M floors.
The interior has been carefully conceived and designed by Tokujin Yoshioka who designed the Issey Miyake stores in London and Tokyo, to give the space a modern, casual look in line with the spirit of the brand. Yoshioka focused on creating a space that could bring out the views of each brand carried in the store to their fullest extent.
To ensure that the clothing exists as the main feature inside this space, he used fixtures that appear to be floating in mid-air, and kept the design as simple as possible. The store offers the full range of the house’s brands including Issey Miyake, Issey Miyake Men, Pleats Please Issey Miyake, Homme Plisse Issey Miyake, me Issey Miyake, Bao Bao Issey Miyake, and 132 5. Issey Miyake.
The designer introduced his first collection to New York in 1971 and began participating in Paris Fashion Week from 1973. His unique concept of clothing as “A Piece of Cloth” has been widely acclaimed since the very beginning. An inexhaustible explorer, he has continued to open up new horizons for making clothes through research, experimentation and development while constantly reimagining the relationship between the human body and clothing.
Over the years, Miyake debuted several epoch-making designs, including the original pleated pieces in 1989 that would later develop into Pleats Please Issey Miyake. He developed the basic idea and process of A-Poc in 1997, this time in collaboration with Dai Fujiwara, which soon evolved into a design solution called “A-Poc Inside” and was incorporated into all the brands owned by the group.
In Thailand Pleats Please Issey Mikaye and the famous Bao Bao bag have enjoyed massive success. “Pleats” was introduced in 1989, and has been developed every season thereafter. By 1993, it was ready to be launched as a complete and stand-alone brand and appeared as Pleats Plese Issey Miyake for the Spring-Summer collection. The true value of the design lies in its integration with the everyday life and comfort of the wearer in a highly functional modern product – light in weight and easy to wear and handle.
The Bao Bao Issey Miyake bag was conceived from the Thai word “Bao Bao” which means lightness. Both light and soft, it folds, accommodates and transforms itself after handling to create dramatic new shapes. A line of bags and pouches with the theme of “shapes made by chance”, the Bao Bao series has a flexible functionality that’s perfect for the busy modern lifestyle.
“Homme Plisse Issey Miyake” is a new concept of clothing for the contemporary man, made possible by the development of Issey Miyake’s original pleating technology. The line has not only chosen wrinkle-resistant and quick-drying fabrics, but also uses uniform pleats in order to prevent the garments from clinging to the skin. As a result, the clothes are comfortable, easy to care for, and lightweight.
The new store also shines the spotlight on the experimental and eco-friendly 132 5 Issey Miyake line developed by Miyake and his Reality Lab team.. A new evolution of “A Piece of Cloth”, the line is made using recycled PET products, sometimes in combination with other recycled fibres, through a new process that creates garments designed to expand from two-dimensional geometric shapes into structured shirts, skirts, pants and dresses.
This new creative challenge is based on the ideas of “Regeneration and Re-creation” and is a continuation of the Japanese designer’s perpetual search for new ways to make “clothes that bring joy and happiness to wearers”.
This source first appeared on The Nation Life.