NEW CHAPTER UNFOLDING: Issey Miyake will be showcasing its three-year-old IM Men line during January’s Paris Men’s Week, the Japanese fashion company said Thursday.
The menswear line designed by MDS, the Miyake Design Studio, gets its runway debut during the traditional Issey Miyake show slot.
It will be presented bi-annually in Paris going forward, taking the place of the Homme Plissé line that had been showing in Paris since 2019.
IM Men line was created in 2021 with the aim to develop clothing that integrates design and engineering, the company said in a statement co-signed by MDS chairman Midori Kitamura and Hiroki Kaito, president and chief executive officer of Issey Miyake Inc.
Quietly debuted internationally with a London pop-up in 2023, the line focuses on functionality-first pieces that feature ideas such as three-dimensional constructions, no-sew knits and innovative materials.
A look from the IM Men line.
Courtesy of Issey Miyake Inc.
Its design team, led by veteran MDS members Sen Kawahara, Yuki Itakura and Nobutaka Kobayashi, “work both as designers and as engineers at the same time,” who make “design-creation and technology co-exist and complement each other,” the company added.
“Together, they set out to redefine clothing with the approach of both a garment’s form-making and its construction – developing and advancing clothes-making as derived from the philosophy of ‘a piece of cloth,’” a concept pioneered by late founder Issey Miyake.
Meanwhile, the Homme Plissé line has “grown into a brand celebrated by people around the world” in the five years since it started showing in Paris, said the Issey Miyake company.
Although it’s stepping off the runway, plans for Homme Plissé’s development will be unveiled in the spring.
