A rare Issey Miyake A-POC "Alien" dress, Autumn-Winter 1999, labeled, black wool and nylon blend. From a pattern which, when cut and folded, results in a twinned or double layered, long-sleeved dress. Sold t/w with book by Miyake and Dai Fujiwara, A POC MAKING (Vitra Design Museum, 2001). Measurements: Shoulder to bottom 53 inches, chest 36 inches, two rectangular pieces 9.5 inches x 28.5 inches, sleeves 25.5 inches.
Hiroshima born graphic designer Issey Miyake trained in tailoring with Kenzo in mid 1960's Paris; fittingly, Miyake's clothing reflects both his background in meticulous construction and his affinity for technological ingenuity. While Japanese tattoo prints and sashiko coats mark the mid seventies era of his early career, Miyake's name evokes the image of highly geometric, origami-esque versatile garments. His signature pleating technique, producing an accordion-like shrunken form debuted in 1993 with the now iconic "Pleats Please" line, though his formalist patternmaking reinvented the ecological design movement in his later release of APOC "A Piece of Cloth" which posed one tube of jersey to warrant an entire outfit without a scrap of fabric waste. Experimental, often unproportional, individually-oriented: a Miyake garment often leaves the interpretation of his work up to the wearer themselves, offering a multipurpose approach to clothing the body. Although Miyake retired in 1999, his ready-to-wear line continues to reinvent approaches to textile, form, and function under the creative direction of the Miyake Team, a rotating collective of cutting-edge artists.

PROVENANCE From The Collection of Doris Raymond

Fashion