Exhibition "REALITY LAB," from November 16 to December 26 @ 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT

Issey Miyake and his REALITY LAB. team are proud to announce their first project, “132 5. ISSEY MIYAKE” : a modern solution by which to make clothes and industrial products based upon the mathematical principle of origami as well as clothing technology. It was shown for the first time in Tokyo on August 23 and 24, 2010. 

http://mds.isseymiyake.com/im_en_news/

The 132 5 Issey Miyake collection is based on a range of clothing that unfold from two-dimensional geometric shapes into structured shirts, skirts, pants and dresses in a similar way as origami. The title explains the notion: 1 refers to a single piece of fabric, 3 to a three-dimensional shape reduced to 2-dimensions, and 5 refers to the fifth dimension, which Miyake describes as the moment the garment is worn and comes to life “through the communication among people.” Ten basic two-dimensional patterns make up the collection, the eventual garments being decided by the lines the patterns are cut along and their position.

The project is a collaboration between Miyake's lab and Japanese computer Scientist Jun Mitani, who developed software that allowed him to construct three-dimensional origami forms from a single sheet of paper. Miayke's goal was to create dresses and skirts from a single piece of cloth. Instead of cutting and sewing, the fabric would be folded with sharp, precise, permanent creases — like those of origami — based on Mitani’s computer-generated formulas.

When folded, the garments are pleasing flat round geometric shapes such as stars and swirls. When unfolded, they become multi-faceted angular tubes that can be worn as day dresses, cocktail dresses or a long skirt. Miyake wanted the garments to be as sustainable as possible, so he choose to work with  fabrics made of recycled plastic bottles.

http://www.infrabodies.com/132-5-by-issey-miyakes-reality-lab

21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, as a venue to consider roles of design in the society, hold Exhibition "REALITY LAB," from November 16 to December 26. According to the exhibition director, Issey Miyake, the job of a designer consists of "a continual search for means by which to turn ideas into reality for those who can use them- in other words, a 'REALITY LAB'." Using this concept as a starting point, the exhibition's goal is to challenge, explore and celebrate the infinite "possibilities of creation."

The Japanese art of manufacturing, or of making things, is renowned worldwide for its precision. It is the fruit of an application of knowledge and experience, combined with handwork and an aesthetic consciousness. At present, however, the manufacturing industry in Japan is facing increasingly grave issues: the loss of talented workers, poor production, and shrinking resources due to the global environmental crisis. How can design provide a solution to these problems?

Issey Miyake has a long-standing history of forging relationships with and encouraging production and plants all over Japan. As a result, he has been able to work in tandem with many of these companies to experiment with new processes and technologies that have always resulted in the new and exciting products that his followers have come to expect. The exhibition will introduce the works by designers, artists, scientists, and companies who came together in the process of his research. Our goal is to provide an opportunity to reflect together upon the nature and possibilities of design that are revealed within the process of creation.  

http://www.2121designsight.jp/en/program/reallab/about.html

Japanese designer Issey Miyake has long been a fashion innovator. Since handing over daily design duties at his Tokyo fashion house in 1997, Miyake has spent his time exploring new ways to make clothes more efficient, ecological and accessible while remaining stylish and modern. Today, he leads the Reality Lab, a consortium of young designers that, as he explains, “challenges, explores and celebrates the infinite possibilities of creativity.”

On September 7, Miyake unveiled the lab’s latest project — 132 5. ISSEY MIYAKE — at the Galerie Kreo on the Left Bank in Paris. The title explains the notion: one piece of fabric, a three-dimensional shape reduced to two, and the fifth dimension, which Miyake describes as the moment the garment is worn and comes to life “through the communication among people.” (In physics, the fifth dimension is a hypothetical extra dimension after the three spatial ones and the fourth, which is time. Some astrophysicists argue that the fifth dimension may be the universe that we live in.)

http://www.2121designsight.jp/en/program/reallab/about.html 

Miyake and Japanese Tradition

By Alan Kennedy a specialist in historic Asian costume and textiles.

What is Japanese in Miyake's work, and why has its "Eastern" component been so well received in the West? The designer understands and appreciates the strengths of Japan's traditions, and is equally aware of how and when to translate that knowledge beyond Japan' borders. The pervasiveness of indigo, for instance, in traditional Japanese folk dress and textiles served as an influence in Miyake's earliest clothing collections. The blue of our ubiquitous blue jeans was originally derived from the same dye source.

In its outlines, the T-shaped kimono can be called an elongated forerunner of our T-shirt. It is simple in construction, being formed of rectangular sections of cloth sewn side to side, which make up the sleeves and body of the garment. In his early handkerchief dresses (1970) Miyake did the same, but instead shifted the orientation of the seams from the vertical to the diagonal.

The relationship between the wearer's body and the traditional kimono is another reference that can be seen in much of Miyake's clothing. Unlike occidental dress, which tends to follow the body's contours through the use of bias cutting, padding and an overall tight fit, the kimono disguises the body's specific shape, and instead suggests the body's movements in the way the voluminous sleeves sway and the long trailing hem sweeps as the wearer moves. Miyake's clothes, which have also been worn by dancers in performances, do not usually hug the body, but move with it in interesting ways.

Because the cut of the kimono is so simple, Japanese textile artisans and designers focused their attention on the fabric itself and its surface decoration. The weight and texture of the cloth used for kimono conveys a wide range of tactile and visual sensations. The designs created by dyeing, weaving, embroidery and applied metal foils can be startling in their dynamic and asymmetric patterning.

An understanding of textile fibers, both natural and synthetic, and of fabrics, both handwoven and traditionally dyed, as well as high-tech textiles that are not woven at all, is one of the most remarkable aspects of Miyake's work. Multi-directional pleating, garments encased in metallic skins, multicolored feltlike clothing "collaged" together from irregularly shaped pieces of cloth, and dresses with large sections that are selectively shrunk represent some of the textile-conscious directions that Miyake has taken in recent years.

A Miyake design doesn't correspond to a particular fashion season, current look or social tendency. His clothes are difficult to put in any chronological order by those who are unfamiliar with his work. One of the more refreshing aspects of Issey Miyake as a fashion designer (a designation he dislikes) is that he does not participate in the seasonal trends involving the selective exposure, exaggeration, or emphasis of a particular part of the female anatomy. This is not to imply that bare skin and transparency are absent from his design vocabulary, but rather that such factors do not drive his design statements. Many of his clothes (as is the case with the kimono) can be worn by women of all ages, shapes and sizes.

The distinction between art and design was not relevant in traditional Japan. Painters worked on kimono, textile designers might also be potters. A hierarchy of fine and applied arts did not exist. An event such as the tea ceremony included a single painting or calligraphic work, ceramics as tea bowls, textiles as wrappers for tea utensils, a flower arrangement and specially-made edibles, all set in a carefully designed space. Perhaps it is this approach that facilitates Miyake's collaborations with artists and his periodic appearances in art museums.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_2_87/ai_53868147/pg_9?tag=content;col1

by Louise Mitchell, Curator, International Decorative Arts and Design

Issey Miyake (born 1938), whose name is perhaps the most well known in the west, established the Miyake Design Studio in Tokyo in 1970 after serving an apprenticeship in Europe and New York. Along with his interest in utilising aspects of Japanese folk culture and traditional textiles, Miyake’s preoccupation during the 1970s was the development of a garment that was reduced to its simplest elements. Drawing on the tradition of the kimono he produced garments he called ‘a piece of cloth’ (A-POC), which were, essentially, square or rectangular in shape with sleeves attached, garments that could be wrapped and draped around the body.

Over the years, Miyake has collaborated with weavers, artists and poets, choreographers and photographers as part of his exploration of what clothes can do and be made from. In the mid 1980s he staged a series of exhibitions aimed at exploring the relationship between the body’s form and the garment. Entitled Bodyworks, the exhibition contained installations of moulded plastic bustiers (a corset-like garment) with sci-fi connotations, and rattan and bamboo bustiers reminiscent of samurai armour. While these sculptural creations were more at home in a museum or art gallery, Miyake’s innovative pleated clothes, developed in the 1990s, have realised his aim of creating practical, modern clothes that are beyond trends. Similarly, his current preoccupation, A-POC, a long tube of stretch fabric that doesn’t require any sewing and is cut by the customer without wasting any material, shows an ongoing commitment to progressive design.

http://www.dhub.org/articles/827