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A few years ago I got a call from a young journalist who explained that her magazine was planning a women’s fashion feature with large collections of vintage clothing. “And my editor says she believes you have a large Issey Miyake collection?” Well, yes, I replied. I’ve been buying it for over 30 years, but every piece was new when I bought it – for me it wasn’t a collection of museum archive pieces, but a work wardrobe. I didn’t go as far as the late architect Zaha Hadid, who only ever wore Miyake, but the Japanese designer was a style staple for me. I’ve been writing about fashion for a large part of my career and I like a lot of labels, a lot of designers. But at the time of the confession, I have two racks of Miyake clothes in my spare room because, as he insisted, they are clothes, not fashion, and he intended them to last. However, they are a very hot ticket on Ebay among vintage vintage collectors.
Earlier this month, Issey Miyake died of liver cancer aged 84, after building a multi-brand global fashion and perfume empire over 50 years. He is mourned by a group of women and men in the arts and creative industries, media, theater and academia.
Earlier this month, Issey Miyake died of liver cancer at the age of 84. He had built a global multi-brand fashion and perfume empire over 50 years.
Counted among them and as diverse in personal style as one could imagine are Jancis Robinson, Grace Jones (some of her most iconic photographs are in Miyake), the Olsen twins, Katy Perry, Prue Leith, Tinie Tempah, Kim Kardashian, Will .i.am, Suzy Menkes and potter Jennifer Lee. He loved his customers, joining them in the creation process, making them lifelong friends. “When I make something,” he said, “it’s only half finished. When people use it – for years and years – then it’s finished.’ There’s the well-known story of how he made Apple’s Steve Jobs 100 turtlenecks to go with his Levi’s 501s so he wouldn’t be bothered by ‘decision fatigue’ in the morning. Less well-known it’s when he learned that architect Richard Rogers refused to stop wearing the Miyake jacket he’d owned for more than a decade and which, due to too much travel and too many construction sites, had become a weirdo. Miyake immediately did an identical replacement and promised more whenever needed.
His innate and impulsive generosity is also there in a story told by his long-time UK press officer, Piera Berardi. “He was in London during fashion week in 1995 and I asked for an extended lunch to see my brother Antonio Berardi’s first catwalk show. Issey had a work lunch but he immediately canceled and said, “I’m coming too.” And there he was in the front row of Antonio’s show. Imagine what the world press did about it! Imagine what that did to Antonio’s new reputation.’
The talent to shape the future always excited Miyake. In 1986, when the press was at its most powerful and profitable, the entire Guardian department, plus critics and various specialists, moved to Tokyo for a week. It was served at a dinner at Tokyo’s newest, most expensive restaurant for me, my fashion editor Sarah Mower, and (a late self-selected addition) Miyake-ophile and art critic Waldemar Januszczak. He didn’t do this to promote his work, but to introduce us to the newest generation of Japanese designers. These were the people, he insisted, we had to write about.
Designer Issey Miyakei during Paris Fashion Week circa 1993 in Paris. The designer introduced the world to a new wave of Japanese fashion designers
“There was no one like him,” recalls Professor Ron Arad, the renowned industrial designer who worked with Miyake on a student project for the Royal College of Art, a project that produced the Ripple chair. “I have met many wonderful people, but Issey was unmatched in generosity, curiosity and creativity. When he launched A-POC (a piece of cloth) in 1998, the knitted tube with dotted lines for people to choose and shape their clothing, I made him a chair and we styled the chair with the Launch dress . It was fun and there was always a lot of laughter working with him.’
The former director of Tate and art historian, Sir Nicholas Serota, also remembers this. “Like others, I was amazed at how he stayed true to his principles in a world that places such an emphasis on celebrity. His humility and determination to stay close to his roots in his fascination with materials and the body in motion meant that he was inventive to the end. Everything felt fresh and seemed to come effortlessly, but that was because he made sure to give himself time to think and, most importantly, laugh. He never took himself too seriously.’
He had no equal in generosity, curiosity and creativity
Miyake’s approach to clothing was rational, innovative and joyful. There was a play on how an outfit could be one thing, then a shrug, a movement of the hand could make it something else. He loved color and the ‘space between body and garment’, the way the two moved into each other, flowing from one abstract form to another. He welcomed the contributions of other artists and creators in various fields. Artists Robert Rauschenberg and Christo became friends, as did costume designer Anthony Powell, inventor Sir James Dyson, and photographers Lord Snowdon and Irving Penn (the latter volunteered in 1986 to shoot all of Miyake’s collections, which he did for more than a decade).
When she came across a book on ceramics in a London bookstore, Miyake fell in love with the purity of potter Dame Lucie Rie’s work. It resonated with the Japanese aesthetic of a return to essential form. They became friends, and he organized an exhibition of her work in Tokyo and Osaka, where the pieces were displayed seemingly floating in a giant rectangular pool, emphasizing their serene serenity. Miyake used some of her colorful stone buttons on coats in a collection in 1989, and she left the entire collection to him in her will when she died in 1995.
He is mourned by a group of women and men in the arts and creative industries, media, theater and academia, including fashion writer Brenda Polan pictured with an Issey Miyake scarf.
Miyake, who always greeted everyone with open arms and a matching smile, was a great gift giver himself. Not having something to give frustrated him. Once, when he did not expect to see me and had nothing prepared, he took the scarf from his neck and put it around mine. A simple cotton scarf, but a beautiful thing. I still have it and love it. Ron Arad told me: ‘I treasure everything he gave me.’
Miyake has often said that he did not want to be known as the designer who, as a seven-year-old, witnessed the detonation of the atomic bomb over his hometown of Hiroshima in 1945, and whose health was jeopardized by it. He was drawn to clothing because he saw it as ever-evolving and therefore optimistic. Dress in Japanese is fuku and fuku also means good luck, happiness. And I’m probably trying to make people happy. And for myself.’
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