Issey Miyake’s S/S16 womenswear collection sees the natural meet the mechanical, featuring their ‘baked stretch’. Consisting of glue being printed onto material before being actually baked in an oven, the result is the creation of incredibly deeply engraved pleats – pleats which appear solid and structural, yet retain an elegant flow, perhaps appealing to the ‘natural’ side of the collection. The use of rough, fraying fringing reinforces the raw vibe and combined with the complementary colour tones really builds upon the almost naive, unprocessed feel – quite different to the fairly ‘synthetic’ themes previously known from Miyake. However, to the informed, this collection is still underpinned by the mechanical undertones of the method of pleating.
Jessie Gardiner
Illustration: Robson Stannard