Fantastical, out-of-this-world and ultimately deeply compelling, the Issey Miyake fall/winter 2024 collection is a play on proportions: Blurring the lines between complexity and simplicity, the imposing and the intricate. This subversion, making the surreal appear real and placing the “other” at the centre of attention, is key to interpreting Artistic Director Satoshi Kondo’s work here as he presented his collection titled “What Has Always Been” inside France’s former Museum of Colonialism.
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It’s stunning how he plays with colour across such a wide spectrum of constructed shapes, from the flawless (a streamlined dress with sleeves which drop to the floor) to the deeply flawed but equally beautiful (a draped shirt-dress with so many pleats and folds). These pieces shine so bright, so ethereal, that it’s hard to imagine influencers and fashion ‘It’ girls everywhere not snatching away at them.
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The truth being that fashion, and the people who run it, have always been enraptured by the exotic and the alien, the things we seek but do not actually understand. And this legacy has always been embedded in fashion’s Oriental ambitions. What Issey Miyake and his contemporaries brought to the table when they first exploded onto the market decades ago was previously unseen and unheard of, and the fashion scene at the time naturally went wild for it. From Miyake’s pleating technique (which some rightfully called revolutionary but really sits on centuries of cultural history) to Kondo’s abstract patterns inspired by Japanese flowers, there’s a continuity of evolution to the Issey Miyake brand here that is quite lovely to see.
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A master of textural layering, Kondo calls on several design details here which hint at the primitive and prehistoric while also appearing futuristic and forward-thinking; the continuity of human evolution. The head scarves wrapped in whichever way, the many pieces of cloth draped over several of these looks, all point to an enduring fascination with what we can’t see, and the stimulation it brings us. To bring us back down to earth, Kondo asks us to ponder what it might be to revert that fascination back to the sights and sounds which actually surround us; to try and actually engage with what we lust after rather than objectifying our desires and commercialising them without thought as a kink; to contemplate “what has always been.”