The Latest in Issey Miyake’s Brand Lineup Extends its Practice of Cutting-Edge Fabric Development and Garment Construction
Issey Miyake has announced the arrival of its A-POC Able brand in the United States for the first time. The brand will launch on Wednesday, May 1st, 2024 at Issey Miyake’s flagship in New York City. In celebration of the new brand launch, the store will be hosting a special exhibition from May 1st through the 5th showcasing the brand’s design and making.
A-POC ABLE is created by a design team led by Issey Miyake veteran Yoshiyuki Miyamae, and pushes the boundaries within the innovative A-POC system established by Issey Miyake.
Introduced in 1998, Issey Miyake’s A-POC brand – which takes its name from the phrase “a piece of cloth” – was conceived to highlight the two dimensional quality of cloth and to minimize waste. APOC garments were produced in machine made rolls of knit fabric pre-sewn or fused with finished patterns, which the user would then cut from the roll to create a ready-made, customized garment. Because of the way the seams were manufactured into the fabric, the wearer could further customize and shape the piece by cutting it, making the wearer the ultimate part of the design process and creating a new kind of participatory fashion.
A-POC ABLE continues and further develops the unique manufacturing process that A-POC has engaged in for over twenty years. The brand aims to further explore the potential of the A-POC system through exciting encounters and new discoveries – the inspiration behind the word “ABLE.” These approaches will include experimental uses of new technology to manufacture the garments, as well as partnerships with forward-thinking artists and designers.
Collections from the brand will be classified into 2 categories, “Project Types” and “Product Types.”
Project Types encompass collaborations with creative professionals from different disciplines that research and develop new ways of pushing beyond the original A-POC system. Past projects include work with creative and technological leaders Tadanori Yokoo, Nature Architects Inc. and Tatsuo Miyajima.
Product Types encompass pieces developed within the A-POC system, and are categorized according to their design and making processes. Type-O, for instance, features garments that are three-dimensionally shaped from patchwork-like arrangement of vertical and horizontal pleat shapes, while Type-A applies knit techniques to the original A-POC concept of cutting finished garments from a theoretically endless tube of fabric.
To mark the arrival of the brand in New York, limited edition pieces from the TYPE-VI Sohei Nishino project, which transforms the photographer’s composite map photographs into garments through jacquard weaving. will be exclusively available in New York. A-POC ABLE will also be available in the UK for the first time launching Friday, April 26th, 2024 at the 10 Brook Street Issey Miyake store.
