This month saw the loss of one of the most important figures in Japanese fashion history. Issey Miyake, who passed on Aug. 5 at the age of 84, leaves an incomparable legacy in fashion. As an educator, one sees students who boast about "becoming the next X", but there is not one student who has dared to say they will even attempt to walk in Miyake's footprints.
Such was his ability to redefine pattering and even cloth itself that his collections became revelations, defying what one thought was possible in fashion and changing with it how we view the body. History will remember his easier-to-grasp work, conceptual work such as "A-POC" that feature entire collections made from a single piece of cloth, and technical work where origami-esque pleating lets the body find its place within a flat surface.
But Miyake’s place as a designer who went beyond conceptions of East and West to forge a path entirely untrodden is arguably the most valuable for future generations. To walk in his footsteps is to walk a path that is entirely your own.
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