In the 1970s, the world still viewed commercial photography and art as two separate fields. By making high quality prints from some of his earliest photographs, Penn helped audiences see that the tonal richness and variation of his photographs could be just as subtle as a Goya or a Rembrandt etching. His revival of the Platinum-Palladium process from the 19 th century helped late-20 th-century observers accept photography as an art form. Long after Kuramata’s death, Miyake maintained the two shops he designed in the Aoyama neighborhood as a silent tribute. “When we began working in early 1960s, Japan was at the height of its post-WWII economic recovery,” Miyake said in a statement on the occasion of the 2011 exhibition Shiro Kuramata Ettore Sottsass. “Kuramata was a heroic presence to me, even within a group comprised of so many formidable talents. His use of materials, for example: No matter what it was, he transformed it into an attractive design that we had never seen before. We all deeply respected Kuramata both in terms of his work and as a person. Japanese design is tight and rational and has no unnecessary elements. But Kuramata’s work was filled with mystery, a world that we are not ordinarily capable of expressing. My work might have been different had I never met him.” A model rides on a skateboard as she presents a Miyake creation at a ready-to-wear fashion show in Paris in 2020. Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images In addition to his editorial and advertising work, Penn was also a master printmaker. Beginning in 1964, he pioneered a complex technique for making platinum-palladium prints, a 19th century print process to which he applied 20th century materials.

From 1980 to 1985, Miyake created Body Series, a collection of sculptural clothing that covers the torso and is made of hard materials that had never been used for clothing before like fiber-reinforced plastic, synthetic resins, rattan, and wire. Plastic Body, from the autumn-winter 1980 collection, for example, was made from plastic; and Rattan Body (spring-summer 1982, shown here) used rattan and bamboo and was featured on the cover of Artforum. “These sculptural clothes—clothing for militant women, we might say—were created out of both Miyake’s unrestrained and ever-searching mind as well as his efforts in support of new technologies and traditional skills,” writes Yayoi Motohashi, curator of Miyake Issey Exhibition: The Work of Issey Miyake at the National Art Centre Tokyo. — P.M. I developed periostitis due to radiation exposure when I was a fourth-grader at primary school. Some people died of this disease, but I was saved by penicillin. My mother nursed me while I was fighting the disease and died soon after my condition improved.Sustainability is one of fashion’s biggest challenges. A by-product of Miyake’s signature pleats is the many sheets of paper between which the garments are sandwiched for the heat pressing process. In the production process, the paper is pleated with the fabric, leaving behind hundreds of metres of unwanted crinkly paper. The task of design is to make concepts [into]realities,” Miyake said of his studio’s Reality Lab. “and to actively experiment until products are in the hands of those who will use them.” The lab was established in 2007 with an 11-member team comprising both young experimenters and veteran engineers, working on new ways of making. The lab’s first output, released in 2010, was the 132 5 collection, its numerical name an indication of how the pieces moved through various levels of dimensionality. Alongside the collection, the lab also developed a fully recycled polyester material (which members wear in the photograph above). Reality Lab. went on to collaborate with computer scientist Jun Mitani, who had developed a software program for what he calls 3D origami, creating continuing additions to the 132 5 collection, as well as IN-EI, a 2012 collection of collapsible lighting. — A.R. The term itself directly translates to “Japanese dance”, and although it does not refer to dancing in general, it explicitly refers to the kabuki buyo form of dance that is performed in theaters. Is Issey Miyake Still Popular?

Untroubled: Irving Penn, Works from the Pinault Collection, Mina Image Centre, Beirut, Lebanon, January 17–April 28, 2019. A-PoC Le Feu, by Issey Miyake and Dai Fujiwara, 1999, an example of Miyake’s A-PoC (A Piece of Cloth) concept – extruded tubular fabric that wearers could cut out into seamless garments. Photograph: Yasuaki Yoshinaga/A-PoC Le Feu, Issey Miyake Earthly Bodies: Irving Penn Photographs, 1949-1950, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 14–April 21, 2002. Traveled to: as Irving Penn Nudes, Art Institute of Chicago, June 1–October 6, 2002; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, March 22–August 10, 2003.Penn, Irving. Irving Penn, A Career in Photography (exhibition catalogue). Boston: Art Institute of Chicago in association with Bulfinch Press/Little Brown and Co., 1997. Saiki, Maggie Kinser. "The Ordinary that Surprises: Issey Miyake; Photographs by Irving Penn." Graphis 48 (July/August 1992): 32–49. Irving Penn: Recent Still Life: Negatives 1979–1980, Prints in Platinum Metals 1980–1982. With introduction by Colin Eisler. Marlborough Gallery. New York, 1982.

Irving Penn: Vintage Prints from the Series "Earthly Bodies," 1949–1950, Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York, December 6 –January 19, 1991. Tuite, Rebecca C. 1950s in Vogue: the Jessica Daves Years, 1952-1962. London: Thames and Hudson, 2019. Drawing on Tanizaki’s emphasis on the subtlety of light and shadow in the Japanese home, Miyake embarked on a collaboration with the Italian product design company Artemide. Together they produced IN-EI (‘shadow’ in Japanese), a series of folded lampshades that, when opened, create twisting geometric sculptures. Like the ‘132 5’ dress (above), the lampshades strike a distinctive balance between mathematical precision and organic forms. The example in the V&A collection is named Katatsumuri, the Japanese word for snail. Passage: A Work Record. With the collaboration of Alexandra Arrowsmith and Nicola Majocchi. Introduction by Alexander Liberman. New York: Knopf, 1991.

Callaway, Nicholas and Irving Penn. Issey Miyake: Photographs by Irving Penn. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1988.

Studio to Stage: Music Photography from the Fifties to the Present, Pace Gallery, 540 West 25th Street, New York, June 29–August 19, 2022. Despite the fact Miyake never attended the photo sessions by Penn (nor did Penn ever go to any of Miyake’s shows) – there is an incredible visual conversation that arose between the two artists due to the complete artistic freedom afforded to Penn. The sculptural quality of Miyake’s work is boldly captured in his images – a furrow of pleats transforms a woman into an elegant slinky, or a coat is inflated like an oversize balloon. In fact, Penn noted in the introduction to his 1988 monograph, Issey Miyake: Photographs By Irving Penn: “His designs are not fashionable, but women of style are enriched by them and are made more beautiful by them.”Stathatos, John. "Die Politische Dimension: Linke Gegen Rechte Fotografie." Kunstforum International no.129 (January/April 1995): 144–57. Miyake kept the sorrows of his childhood private until 2009, and remained secretive about his personal life: his closest companions were his work collaborators, especially the studio president, Midori Kitamura, a former model.