You really have to love Issey Miyake Men. You can’t not. What that man does with a tight, tiny pleat makes everyone go weak at the knees. Literally, fall on the floor, flat on your face weak at the knees. Spy a piece of Pleats Please and all motor neurone functions are out of the window. But we’re not here to discuss the pleats, pretty as they may be, we’re here to talk menswear. The Issey Miyake Men AW18 collection in fact. The collection, designed by Yusuke Takahashi is a riff on, to quote from the notes, ‘motifs made by chance’. Drop something from a height, in this case fabric, watch it fall, and see what happens. In this instance, it’s a play on classic Issey hallmarks; Loose suiting layers in an array of midnight blue punched through with maroon and a rainbow of greens, from moss to electric lime. The twist though, is in the fabrications. These were techno nylons- wipe down ease. Saves so much on dry cleaning. The illusion of fit is created by the use of stretch tape, acting as a decorative seam on oversized garments giving them the appearance of being tailored when really they’re anything but. And did we mention that everything here is reversible? Not to harp on too much about the price of dry cleaning these days, but we’ve always been partial to a little something you can simply flip over and wipe down.
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans
