(Commonwealth Union) – When it comes to Japan, they have always seen ahead of the trends and us as mere fashion mortals can only be grateful. Whilst people rave about the commercial fashion scene which is Paris, Milan, London they tend to forget that Japan is a trend setting nation from day one.
Japan has been a strong contender in the game that the world calls fashion and have been since history can remember. There have been some forces of nature when it comes to designers, well, the one we remember today is none other than Issey Miyake.
Mr. Miyake often joked that he was the Mr. Miyagi of fashion. This became a popular joke as the fictional charter and the late fashion futurist had very similar names. The fashion guru was known for pushing Asian fashion, mostly Japanese fashion, to its absolute limits and creating some of the most beautiful clothes in the country. Internationally this man was hero worshipped for bringing the Japanese art of fashion to the stage and letting the world enjoy it.
People were fighting to get an Issey Miyaki piece and now we can see why. Issey Miyake was fashion’s true futurist. The Japanese designer was in his own word obsessed with pleats as he conquered that pleat brought the outfit to life.
This in a way for him was true as he explained how adding a certain type of pleat did give the outfit he was designing a certain edge or a bounce that only Mr Miyaki himself could produce. The pleats cannot be done on every outfit. Mr. Miyaki picked out the outfits that were pleat worthy. We to this day are grateful that Mr. Miyaki introduced the pleat and has a trained set of professionals to keep his legacy alive.
