Goodbye to Issey Miyake, the Japanese who Crossed Borders

Goodbye to Issey Miyake, the Japanese who Crossed Borders – With Fortuny’s permission, he became the king of wrinkles, and his name, the same as that of his homonymous brand, was one of the most recognized in the fashion industry. The Japanese designer Issey Miyake died last Friday, August 5, in Tokyo due to liver cancer, but it was not until this week that the news was known. Miyake, very jealous of his privacy, died surround by his family and was buri with the strictest confidentiality. As announced by the posthumous designer’s studio, Miyake Design Studio, there will be no more acts or tribute ceremonies. The discreet designer has gone as he has lived: most timidly and practically.

From Tokyo to Paris – Issey Miyake

The Japanese born in Hiroshima in 1938 went to study fashion in Paris in the 1960s following his artistic impulses and fleeing from a childhood marked by the atomic bomb of 1945, whose radioactive effects left him without a mother at just ten years old. And a slight limp. A past that he rarely spoke about and that when he did, it was precisely to express his tendency to think of beauty, joy, and creativity as a way of life to the detriment of the destruction and darkness that had marked his first years of life.

After having trained in the French capital with designers of the stature of Guy Laroche and Givenchy, Miyake returned to his native Japan, where he founded his studio in 1970, being the first Asian designer to parade at Paris Fashion Week and putting Japan and his way of understanding clothing on the fashion radar.

That way of understanding fashion was none other than creating aesthetic pieces that were both innovative and practical, a combination that at that time was not something easy to conceive and that the Japanese made a constant throughout his career.

That modus operandi of innovation and experimentation led him to inspire by the mythical Delphi pleat of Fortuny to create some of his pieces that quickly became an emblem of his brand. At the Miyake Design Center, he made several more experimental elements, such as his baked fabrics and even dared with perfumes. L’Eau d’Issey is one of his best-known creations; millions of bottles of this spring perfume are sold worldwide every day.

From Steve Jobs’ “uniform” to the Bao Bao bag

Apart from its elaborate pleats and famous perfumes, another flagship design of the Asian creator’s brand is its Bao Bao bag with geometric and folding shapes. Again, a piece recognized at first glance and that the firm has extrapolated to different creations in its latest collections, such as hats, backpacks, and handbags.

However, one of his most curious feats was becoming the head designer of Steve Jobs. On a trip to Japan. The latter met the designer and asked him to make some turtleneck sweaters with the idea of ​​dressing every day in that self-imposed uniform so as not to have to think every morning about what clothes he was going to wear. As a result of this request. A great friendship was born between them that lasted until the renowned computer scientist died in 2011 due to pancreatic cancer, same cancer that took his favorite designer eleven years later.