It's funny how, often, the more you look at a collection, the more a specific work of art comes to your mind. Take Issey Miyake's Spring/Summer 2013: Creative Director Yoshiyuki Miyamae may have been inspired by birds flying or alighting on water - an effect replicated in the striped tops characterised by stretchy bits of fabrics that revealed different colours - yet the stripy and graphic sharp effects on the garments rather than evoking nature and birds, called to mind urban moods and artworks such as "The Last Samurai: Homage to Akira Kurosawa" (1996) by Polish graphic designer Roman Duszek.
Colours - in particular strong shades of blue, green, orange and yellow - were the key to most of the designs, especially the jersey dresses in which Miyamae applied a new technique dubbed double-sided transfer printing that allowed to colour a fabric from both the sides letting each colour be seen through the other, creating a sort of flapping effect (that's probably where Miyamae's flying bird inspiration came in...).
Vertical or diagonal stripes and dogtooth checks often turned into graphic geometries for an irregular futurism while optical black and white lines à la Vasarely were given new life when mixed and matched with bright colours or were incorporated as details in cycling shorts or wide legged pants to add a bit of dynamicity to the collection.
The collection also displayed a lot of fabric research: apart from double-sided transfer printing, steam stretch came back in the black and white/blue and white tops in which little cubes and ribs of fabrics seemed to emerge as if they were pixels gone crazy, while bonding techniques gave outerwear neat and pristine silhouettes.
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and PhotosMember of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Comments