The fashion industry seems to be extremely removed from the tragedies of this world.
The fashion weeks were indeed in full swing during the revolts that have changed and are still changing the face of the Middle East.
Paris Fashion Week closed at the beginning of last week, then a terrible earthquake and tsunami struck Japan.
As the death toll soars and the crisis at nuclear plants spreads, it's difficult to think about less vitally important and more superficial things such as fashion.
Yet, beauty can often help you overcoming tragedy and traumas, so as a tribute to Japan, let's look in today's post at Issey Miyake's Autumn/Winter 2011 collection.
From the point of view of a writer or a cultural commentator, Miyake's collection was probably one of the few ones for the next Autumnal season that allows you to write well about artistic and philosophical concepts.
Origamis were the main inspiration behind this collection: the opening tail coats, dresses, skirts and jackets were indeed made out of folded and stapled paper reproducing giant origamis.
Little by little fabric variations of these pieces that were put together by catwalk assistants, appeared on the runway.
Garments in different shades of grey - from dove to charcoal - or in black and white, characterised by houndstooth and herringbone patterns were clearly inspired by the previous origamis and by their precise angular and geometric shapes and silhouettes.
Yet the chevrons, folds and voluminous padded lapels integrated in some of the designs soon transformed, including an architectural element, but also creating optical illusions (see for example the skirts in which the chevrons looked like prints, but were actually made out of woven ribbons) employed to evoke a sense of movement.
The effect worked quite well in coats in bright shades such as red with squarish or zigzagging motifs that evoked M.C. Escher's works.
Dutch artist Escher actually appeared in this blog in a previous post in connection with another fashion designer, Alexandra Verschueren.
Yet, while the latter seemed to recreate Escher's vision in the fabric of her designs, sculpting it in her silhouettes, Miyake's creative director Dai Fujiwara's looked at prints, colours and graphic effects that could have the same purpose of Escher's impossible constructions, that is fooling the brain via repetitions and slight variations.
Maybe it was that mixture of origamis and optical illusions, maybe it was the combination of bold graphics, non-Euclidean symmetries, and immaterially ethereal coloured chiffon layered or folded to create innovative nuances or poetical movements, but Fujiwara's last collection after five years as creative director at Miyake's was definitely one of the best and most intriguing ones presented during Paris Fashion Week, both from a fashion and from an artistic point of view.
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