issey miyake & tatsuo miyajima play with time & fashion at milan design week 2022

The city of Milan is a mixing ground for leading creativity, whether that is industrial design, fashion, art or architecture. The same themes are ever-present at Issey Miyake, as the brand’s clothing is designed in the same way that a product is. ISSEY MIYAKE / MILAN hosts the collaborative, experimental exhibition THINKING DESIGN, MAKING DESIGN: work by A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE and Tatsuo Miyajima during Milan Design Week 2022. The TYPE-II Tatsuo Miyajima project is on show, unveiling the conceptualization and realization of the design work behind the revolutionary fashion brand.

All images courtesy of Issey Miyake

Issey Miyake has always challenged itself to create original products. Since its inception in 1998, the company’s aim has been to revolutionize the process of clothes-making. The design work goes beyond form-making to create garments that reflect the wears’ lifestyles, most notably through advanced development of original fabrics. Research project A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE focuses on the future by interweaving artwork in fashion design through creative collaborations.

Tatsuo Miyajima’s artwork represents time and life through the depiction of numbers from 1 through to 9

Issey Miyake x Tatsuo Miyajima

Issey Miyake’s collaborates with renowned contemporary artist Tatsuo Miyajima for Milan Design Week 2022. He creates artwork that represents time and life through the depiction of numbers from 1 through to 9. Three concepts are apparent in his work: it keeps changing, it connects with everything, and it continues forever. The collaboration stems from the idea of promoting experiences of wearing art in everyday living. Digital numbers adorn the fashion designs in a display of seven segments.

Pieces of the seven segments of numbers are wrapped in the special textile throughout the exhibition

numerical fashion and artwork

On show at the exhibition THINKING DESIGN, MAKING DESIGN: work by A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE and Tatsuo Miyajima, two fashion designs are on display for visitors to see: TYPE-II-001 and TYPE-II-002. The former resembles a blouson that uses the steam stretch method to combine a pleated garment with Miyajima’s expression of digital numbers. The technique affects special heat-reactive threads woven into the clothe to then shrink it when hot steam is applied. Three-dimensional patterns and shapes are created by only treating intended sections.

TYPE-II-002 fashions a unisex blouson using Sony Group’s triporous™, a new sustainable material made from rice husks. Digital numbers feature randomly on the clothing, with the color black extended to highlight the artwork most visibly.

Each day a visitor rolls a 10-sided die and then hangs the segments on the wall accordingly

The fashion show is paired with a series of participatory artwork and a video interview with Tatsuo Miyajima, who reveals the thinking and making behind the collaboration. The exhibition’s artwork serves as the inspiration for the entire project. Pieces of the seven segments of numbers are wrapped in the special textile. Each set of pattern is different as the numbers are randomly woven into textiles. Each day a visitor rolls a 10-sided die and then hangs the segments on the wall accordingly. The ritual plays on the artist’s balance of analog and digital in his work.