The techno-poetic revolution of Homme Plissé, Issey Miyake's gift to modern life
The line launched in 2013 makes life easier by adapting to different physiques and styles, also thanks to special materials and workmanship and an inherent lack of seasonality
4' min read
4' min read
There are many today who arrogate to themselves the title of supreme innovators, of Promethean revolutionaries, but the truth is that more often than not they are just words in a vacuum, glazed over into nothingness. The issue is complex, of course, and generalising is of little use, but aesthetics of real impact, capable of rewriting not only the surface of things, but of reprogramming ways and attitudes, of freeing energies by suggesting other ways of being - generally freer, but this is not an absolute rule - are the result of a specific way of making objects.
Yet structural innovation is increasingly the prerogative of the few, while designer-stylists, in fact assemblers rather than builders, are multiplying. That too is innovation, but of more limited scope, a bit like confusing an architect and an interior designer, without establishing a hierarchy of value. Among the most inspired problem-solvers, a tightrope walker of the balance between East and West with his eyes always turned towards the future and his feet firmly planted in tradition, one cannot but remember Issey Miyake (1938-2022).
His sincere impetus, the desire to simplify life through formally beautiful objects, of a beauty that is, however, abstract, is a protean principle that persists in the brand he created, carried on by his capable successors in the parallel lines, each based on a precise design principle, that make up its multiform identity. Of these, Homme Plissé Issey Miyake, launched in 2013, is perhaps the most successful. This project, a utilitarian and transversal exploration of pleating, has become, in more than a decade, a phenomenon, as confirmed by the plethora of copies, and the guest of honour during last June's edition of Pitti Uomo 108, with a fashion show at Villa Medicea della Petraia.
The writer can confirm, from direct experience, that what Homme Plissé promises, it delivers. It facilitates life, inevitably hectic and wearisome nowadays, with malleability, versatility, inciting the game of dressing without lambasting. Made of a special polyester that requires very little care in use, Homme Plissé clothes have no season, not even an expiry date. They are so pure that they are timeless. A statement issued years ago at one of the first fashion shows read "Homme Plissé Issey Miyake was born from the humanistic desire to place the person at the centre of a liquid aesthetic system. Everything about it speaks of ease and fluidity: the regular folds that gently caress the body; the robust yet soft material that keeps the folds in place and the body at ease; the ease of maintenance that is not at odds with impeccable appropriateness. Not forgetting the modularity and elemental purity of the design: everything goes with everything, making the combinations of garments virtually infinite, utterly personal and further expandable over the years. Homme Plissé Issey Miyake offers men of all generations and social classes clothes that transform the everyday act of dressing into a spontaneous expression of inner strength".
It rarely happens that programme manifesto and product coincide. Homme Plissé is a happy exception. I turn to the first person to better explain the singularity of this clothing project, which I approached exactly ten years ago to write about in this very newspaper. From reviewing to trying it out, and finally to adopting it almost completely, the step was short.
