Pleats Please isn’t just a pretty name for what is an extraordinarily good looking book; it’s also the brand which Miyake and his team of exhaustive collaborators developed in the early nineties
Issey Miyake, Pleats Please
By Midori Kitamura $75.00
New Holland Publishers
Taschen have long been associated with books that ooze an intoxicating combination of sophisticated eye candy with intelligent, well-researched content. These are the guys responsible for all manner of coffee-table books, holding your tongue ransom for the price of drool-splattered pages. These are the guys who are like sleuths on the hunt, whisking you away from awkward situations and weird conversations with the life-rope of distraction, an exquisitely arranged array beckoning from the chaise longue.
It makes sense that a publisher of this calibre can scoop in the crème de le crème of subject matter. Issey Miyake fits neatly into this category, whether it’s under the subheading of “fashion”, “design”, “art”, or general “innovator roundabout”. Pleats Please isn’t just a pretty name for what is an extraordinarily good looking book; it’s also the brand which Miyake and his team of exhaustive collaborators developed in the early nineties, celebrating, you guessed it, pleats.
If you’ve had any history of peeling through magazines, you would have seen the images. You’d recognize them if you saw them; those iconic garments which seem to be constructed from shapes which are fluid yet geometric, fabrics which spring into life from a million immaculately ordered folds. These were clothes that had that classic Japanese purity instilled in their being – no pretence, no artful drama, no Parisian deceit. These were, as Miyake said himself, “just clothes”.
Below: photo copyright: Yasuaki Yoshinaga
Some clothes, then. The book introduces the reader to the complex Pleats Please world, offering a sumptuous collection of photographs to complement what is a fascinating history. Yes, it is fashion, but no, it’s not really; it is an insight into a world which is inherently grounded by the rational logic of manufacture, by the new interventions and possibilities of technology, and by the understanding that the involvement of the“human hand” cannot be lost, for without it, the soul, and ultimately the experience of the end product, is eroded.
This may sound like high and mighty stuff, but it’s grounded in realism. The Pleats Please story began in a dance studio in the late eighties, where dancers from the Frankfurt Ballet pounced on Miyake’s creations. Ignoring his directions, men and women cavorted in the costumes, overcome by the bon vivant quality of the (pleated) pieces. Sure enough, Miyake’s reasoning that such a jubilant experience could also be seized by the “ordinary” individual was an accurate assessment of the cultural context of the era. With the dissolution of the eighties prima-donna power suit, and the emergence of new, lightweight and sports-driven fabrics, Pleats Please epitomized an effortless grace that could fit into business, domesticity and play.
Below: Copyright: Francis Giacobetti
Caption: PLEATS PLEASE captured by Francis Giacobetti
This is the real beauty of the Pleats Please movement. It was about universality: clothes for women, regardless of position, or role, in society. Miyake’s ability to create work that defied the high end notion of “couture” and instead offer a practical solution to adorning the body staked its own claim within what was, in the early nineties, unchartered territory. Through intensive research and experimentation, Miyake and his team established a supply-chain system (involving thread, fabric, pleating and garment production) that was capable of longevity in an ever-changing manufacturing and technological market.
It is testament to this timelessness that Pleats Please has been dubbed as “smart clothes”; clothes that, twenty years after their debut, continue to thrill wearers and spectators alike. Taschen have done a fine job in revealing the intricacies behind what Li Edelkoort refers to as the “Miyake miracle”. Cult-coffee table status may just be nigh. As for extrication from awkward situations – well, when it comes to distraction devices, even great conversationalists should watch out with this one on the shelves.
By Willow Sharp 16 October 2012
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