In 2012, Yusuke Takahashi took over the men's line at Issey Miyake (Miyake founded his eponymous company in 1970). Miyake has been highly influential in clothing design and I honestly don't think we would have the likes of Rick Owens or Boris Bidjan Saberi or Damir Doma or Craig Green or even Haider Ackermann without him. I recall going to see "Bodyworks," a Miyake exhibition in 1983 at the old San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on Van Ness (well before anyone had heard of Alexander McQueen much less put together a museum show about him). I knew Miyake from fashion magazines but also from costuming Grace Jones and I was blown away at the combinations of materials (neoprene, wires, bamboo, feathers, and the special Miyake-invented pleated fabric) with shapes, like he was creating shelters or buildings instead of garments. Amazing. And the main display space held an impressive collection of black mannequins, an outer ring of floating figures circling a procession of mannequins slowly ascending an invisible stairway. My 19 year-old self was beyond inspired.
Yusuke Takahashi was inspired by the heat and shifting sands of the desert for a collection aptly titled "Through The Desert." The Miyake website says, "Inspired by a journey into the desert, this collection seeks to celebrate the modern man, understanding his need to enjoy the vast beauty of the wilderness." To be more precise, it is the story of a single day in the desert, from muddy, sandy colors, to sand and blues of the sky, to a single, vibrant orange outfit representing the sunset, and back to sand and dark blue and black hues for the night sky.
Some shapes and cuts reference classic safari/desert clothing but most of the collection is a gorgeous abstraction of billowing Bedouin robes. Gorgeous patterns are based on cracked, dried mud, and cut up strips of what look like landscape photos are assembled onto fabric. "Dynamic motifs inspired by the gradations of geologic stratum are created by marble printing using colored glue. The patterns, produced by the hands of skilled craftsmen who intricately combine different colors, are roller-printed on an original, soft-textured polyester developed from proprietary thread," reports Takahashi.
I think it's quite interesting that the last two collections I've posted have been around the ideas of the desert, heat, land, like Rick Owens' Land Art seen here, and Boris Bidjan Saberi's "Mad Max: Fury Road" fantasy seen here...
I love the ambient, dark, dramatic soundtrack to the show...sounds like the soundtrack for someone trekking across the desert.
http://www.isseymiyake.com/
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