Yusuke Takahashi, the head honcho at the house of Issey Miyake, is obsessed with surface. Thats’ not a bad thing: after all, the serrated surfaces of Miyake’s pleasing pleats are the houses leitmotif and bread-and-butter, and have been referenced on many a catwalk over the past few years. For winter 2017, surface decoration at Miyake was dazzling – dripped and drizzled and speckled and painted with a multicoloured striated design, then a darker, danker hand-dyed birch design flocked onto trenches and suiting. It meant you could opt to dress in head-to-toe vibrant colour or soberly, but always with pattern. The birch design was reminiscent of Miyake’s pleats, which often look a little like wood bark in their creased and crumpled but naturalistic layers, folded about the body. Here they contrasted with sharp lapel-shorn suits and neat boots. It had an energy and distinct wearability. Well done to the new Mr Miyake.
