It was a glimpse inside the artist’s studio at Issey Miyake. Had designer Yoshiyuki Miyamae channelled a painter who’d accidentally brushed against one of her canvases? The digitally printed tops, jackets and skirts would suggest so. So intense was the paint print effect, that you could have reached out and touched each brush stroke. Impressive stuff. The artist’s painting smocks and bib-and-brace dungarees we reinterpreted in white cotton, and artists’ rags – those used to clean brushes and dab wet paint – looked folded into hats or knotted and fashioned into belts to cinch smock-like shirts and jackets. Like a ‘St Ives school’ tribute to Barbara Hepworth and friends, the well-crafted collection will speak directly to the art-loving legion of Miyake fans out there. Painterly stuff.
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans.