Issey Miyake is dead

The Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake is dead. The founder of the fashion brand named after him died on Friday at the age of 84, as an employee of his Tokyo office confirmed on Tuesday. She did not provide information on the cause of death. As reported by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper and other Japanese media, Miyake died of liver cancer. The funeral has already taken place. Miyake was buried in a small circle at his own request, said his employee. A public memorial service is not planned.
Miyake was part of a group of young Japanese designers who made a name for themselves in Paris from the mid-1970s. He was born in Hiroshima in April 1938 and survived the US atomic bombing of his hometown in August 1945 at the age of seven. He contracted a bone disease that left him with a lifelong limp.

Pleated fabrics were his specialty

Many years later, Miyake said he became a fashion designer to leave behind the horrors of Hiroshima and bring “beauty and joy” to the world with his creations. Miyake first studied at the Tama Art Academy in Tokyo and moved to Paris in 1965, where he studied at the renowned Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. In 1970 he founded the Miyake Design Studio in Tokyo and shortly thereafter opened his first boutique in Paris.
In the 1980s, Miyake enjoyed worldwide success, including a whole collection of pleated fabrics and garments made from a single piece of fabric. It was important to him to create comfortable and functional fashion. He also experimented with unusual materials such as Japanese paper. In 2005 he received the most important Japanese art prize Praemium Imperiale. AFP