The Retrospective was Edited by Midori Kitamura, Chairman of the Miyake Design Studio and the Miyake Issey Foundation
Taschen has launched a special-edition book offering a retrospective on the career of legendary designer Issey Miyake.
The definitive history of Miyake’s clothes from 1960-2022 offers expert insight into the designer’s vision and daring. Initiated and conceived by Midori Kitamura, the book looks at the texture-driven originality of Miyake’s materials and techniques from the very earliest days of his career, before he had even established the Miyake Design Studio. Drawing on nearly 50 years of collaborative work with Miyake, Kitamura creates an encyclopaedic reference of his material and technical innovations through clothes based on A Piece of Cloth concept, Body Series of the 1980s, Miyake Pleats series, and such practical, everyday designs as Pleats Please Issey Miyake series.
Stunning photographs capture his clothes in their particular quotidian originality. In her far-reaching essay, meanwhile, leading cultural figure Kazuko Koike offers both a complete chronology of Miyake’s work, and an unprecedented personal profile, looking at the ambition and inspirations that have driven his repertoire from tender teenage years.
Editor Midori Kitamura is chairman of the Miyake Design Studio and the Miyake Issey Foundation, and also president of 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, working under Issey Miyake to develop collections, exhibitions, products and publications, including Pleats Please Issey Miyake, also with Taschen. Kitamura directed the 2011 exhibition, Irving Penn and Issey Miyake: Visual Dialogue.
Kazuko Koike is the founder and director of Sagacho Exhibit Space in Tokyo. She has written and edited many books, including Issey Miyake East Meets West, Japanese Coloring, Japan Design and Aura of Space. She is an advisory board member of MUJI.
