Interview by Filep Motwary

Satoshi, my first question focuses more on your background, before moving to Issey Miyake?
Can you tell me more about how you connect with fashion, to begin with, what was your starting point – I know your mother was a sewing teacher. Did her practice enable you to work in fashion or was it entirely a separate choice?

As a child, I was always interested in making things by myself. I remember my mother would teach me how to make simple items like a drawstring bag. I think I began to make what would be considered “clothing” only after I went to fashion school [, Ueda College of Fashion in Osaka].

What was your perception of fashion before you got involved in it?

Before I went to school to study fashion, I saw myself as a wearer. I would buy the items I like and sometimes make alterations to them by myself, and wearing them to me was a means to express myself. As I learned about fashion and became familiar with clothes-making, I began to pay more attention to the garments I made and put more thought into them, so I think there was this shift from being on the wearer’s side to the maker’s.

How different is the Japanese view of fashion from the French?

To me, I think the younger generations, whether in Japan or France, all seem to enjoy fashion [as wearers]. Fashion in Tokyo can be flamboyant from what I see on the streets, and I also find this sense of vibrancy in Paris [in the sense of “full of energy and life”]. While I don’t find much of a difference between the two countries in the way people enjoy fashion, in Japan there is this tradition of kimono that serves as the foundation of Japanese design and making.

I am wondering when you were asked to take over Issey Miyake from Yoshiyuki Miyamae what were your first thoughts a year ago? And also, what was asked of you to begin with?

I remember I was at Miyake’s residence and sitting at a table with him, kind of like the way we are sitting now [at this interview]. He told me that I am capable of expressing things in my way and in a joyful way, and I should see this as a gift and use it for ISSEY MIYAKE [the women’s line] to make clothing that brings wonder and beauty to people.

I think that Miyake’s philosophy and the way he approached design and making had been imparted to me and other designers of my generation in the company.

When the Japanese designers “invaded” Paris in the late 70’s they indeed caused a revolution in the ways they would envision the body – which was based on the principle of ma, the space between two things -, Mr Miyake pioneered in creating a philosophy of dressing that was indeed very different than his fellow Japanese designers such as Kawakubo or Yamamoto. This vision feels still relevant today. What is your view on this? How can the past feed the future? What is the most challenging aspect of this collaboration today?

For me as a designer, the most important thing is about how to clothe the human body with a piece of cloth to create a garment imbued with a sense of ease, and there the notion of ma or the unfilled space between the two is the key. I think about how I can create a garment naturally [in the sense that the design and making of the garment is not forced and that all the elements involved come together as an integrated whole] and with fluidity [in the sense that the garment drapes around the human body easily and gracefully]. For example, designing and making a garment [with one continuous piece of fabric] that needs as few as possible seams to sew to complete and that reflects as much as possible the fabric’s materiality as it is, so that the garment is something that clothes [in the sense that it surrounds and envelops, both literally and figuratively] the wearer’s body.

What does Issey Miyake stand for today?

I see ISSEY MIYAKE [the women’s line] as a brand that has been designing and making clothing, including the way we express our work, in its own [and original] way.

Me as the designer when I think of what I can bring to the brand, I would say that for every season there is a theme I conceive, and that serves as the base on which I look at the relationship between the wearer’s body and the clothing, where I put to the concept of a piece of cloth into practice. I have also been working with and exploring the technology of seamless knit. For example, this [referring to look #17] is made out of one continuous piece of fabric, which I would say is original and something that I do. And this jacket [referring to look #29] too. The usual way to construct the shoulders three-dimensional like these is to sew the front and back pieces together with arm holes [separated from the sleeves], and you can add shoulder pads. The way I designed the jacket was to have both the bodice and the sleeves made out of one continuous piece of fabric. This way the fabric drapes over the shoulders like this. Instead of shoulder pads this little space, on both sides between the garment and the shoulders, is what extends outward and makes the silhouette more sculptural. Like this, I always try to explore different ways to make a garment more three-dimensional. You can find subtle details like this here and there in the collection.

How distant can a designer remain from the work archive of a great House as such? Is there anything other than Issey Miyakes’ avant-garde philosophy that inspires you today?

I have not been looking through the archives lately. I have been in the company for 16 years [from 2007] and the designer of ISSEY MIYAKE [the women’s line] for less than five years. It was during the first few years of my career that Miyake happened to be going through his work to select pieces to be given to museums or featured in exhibitions. I was one of the staff involved in the selection process, and as we dressed garments on mannequins we learned stories about how they were designed and made. I was young and with little knowledge of ISSEY MIYAKE so soon I absorbed all the information. I still remember seeing the garments and being fascinated by them. If I want, I always have the memories from that experience to work with. I was very lucky that I had the opportunity to be involved in the selection process.

And now I feel that if I look through the archives too much I might limit myself to making similar garments, and nothing new and beyond, so I have been distancing myself from the archives. What I do now is try to keep a delicate balance between recalling my memories of the archives and looking through the archives, and 3)looking at images of ISSEY MIYAKE in the books I have at our office.

What is the inspiration behind the SS24 collection? What was your mood board about? There was lightness, there was structure, there was color? I felt like the show was divided into different chapters…

Two experiences inspired this collection. One is the flag I saw outside Bourse des Commerce in Paris: the way the flag—a rectangular piece of fabric fluttering in the air—continued to wave and change its form, and how beautiful that form is. That form is something that you cannot describe, as it keeps changing and as if the piece of rectangular fabric has dissolved and turned into a formless form. There I thought about taking this phenomenon and translating it into clothes-making, and by doing so hopefully I can create original and exceptional garment forms. The other one was from my stay at the hotel LOG in Onomichi in Hiroshima prefecture: the scenery I saw there and the sense of ease I felt in the hotel room where every surface is covered by washi paper. Integrating these two experiences, I thought about creating a collection that conveys both the beauty of natural forms and the sense of ease you find in natural materials.

How would you describe the period we are in, in terms of aesthetics and theory?

Perhaps this has something to do with the amount of clothing we are creating in the industry, the impression I have is there are many garments that end up looking like each other. And I always thought for ISSEY MIYAKE [the women’s line], we should create clothing that is beautiful and can be considered as something more than fashion. For example, a garment can be a product of design and at the same time be considered as art. This is how I see clothing design in that it should not be defined by any one category, and instead it should be the link between many creative professions.

I think it is a matter of how you study and approach the materials as you create a collection. Of course, information on social media will one way or the other always be around, no matter how hard I try to stay away from it. What is more important to me, going back to creating a collection, is to have a theme with a clear direction, and the extensive research my team and I do which involves many rounds of studies [in the sense of “investigations and explorations” that involve hands-on work]. For example, to make the knit in the first look, we tested many combinations of materials before discovering the right blend for the yarn. We also did many studies to consider things such as how the yarn is twisted and spun, the pull between the front side and the back of the knit [as they have different knit structures], and how that pull would affect the garment’s silhouette and drapery. As part of creating this collection, we also went to a baking workshop [as a way to explore the unexpected and uncontrolled forms due to bread dough rising and being baked]. Like this, we often spend a lot of time on research and exploration of everything except clothing-design, before we move on to actually design and make the garments. And we found that the more time we spend on the research the more coherent the collection becomes, in that the studies we have done serve as the source of the design and making, as if they are guiding us through the creative process, as opposed to us forcing things to happen.

Is commercialism a mandatory element in what you create? I am wondering what has been sacrificed in your work process to achieve what is commercially expected.

When I design and make clothing, I always keep in mind that it should be wearable and the fact that it is a product for sale. However, I don’t draw the line between what is commercial and what is artistic. There is also this idea of everyday-ness, in that the clothing created should relate to our lifestyles. But for me this does not mean that the clothing should be anything ordinary. What I am trying to create is a garment with qualities of being artistic, while still being a product of design.
For me as a designer I always try to convey through the collections this sense of sensuous physicality.

What is perhaps the most important quality a fashion designer can have?

When it comes to a creative process, I think doing studies [in the sense of “investigations and explorations” that involve hands-on work] is the key. This is closely linked to the approach of developing yarn and fabrics in ways we have in mind for the materials, like what I explained earlier about the studies we have done to create the knit in the first look. This approach—the process of exploration—allows us to create something original which is fundamental to our design and making.