If there is one thing people immediately associate with Issey Miyake, it will be pleats. Today, let's take a closer look at one of Miyake’s most loved sublines, Pleats Please.
Pleats Please was originally founded after 4 years of research & development led by Issey Miyake and Makiko Minagawa, an innovator and textile designer who had been with the house since the 70s. In TASCHEN's 2012 Pleats Please publication (documented by now chairman of Miyake Design Studio, Midori Kitamura) Makiko mentioned that with the rise of triathlons, she needed to create a lightweight, fast drying material, suitable for movement and intense activity.
Miyake's fascination with pleats traces back to his 1988 'Issey Miyake A-ŪN' exhibition which left him with the desire to keep surpassing himself. After chancing upon a pleated scarf, the two spent the next 4 years refining a polyester garment-pleating process where each piece was cut and sewn oversized before heat-pressed into permanent pleats. The result is a piece of garment that held its shape, packed easily, and moved with the body.
With this new technique, Miyake took it to the real world in 1991, creating costumes for William Forsythe’s The Loss of Small Detail, performed by the Frankfurt Ballet. "They were crazy about my pleats. That's when it hit me. If dancers with such a wide range of body types and height had so much fun wearing them, ordinary people might, too."
By 1993, Pleats Please was conceived. Fast forward to today, its low-maintenance, ageless garments are still found in every fashion lover's wardrobe and rotation. Designed to fit any body types, they breathe, oscillate, and adapt with the wearer, while the signature zigzags pleats create shadow and depth.
What also made Pleats Please possible was the innovation happening within Japan’s textile printing industry. Seiren’s Viscotecs inkjet technology, capable of producing 16,770,000 colors on fibres, allowed Pleats Please to achieve vivid graphic prints on pleated fabric. Since 1996, this turned the pleated surface into a canvas for almost anything imaginable. At the Miyake store in Tokyo, customers could even choose an artist’s print and dress shape, then watch it made in real time.
The usage of polyester polymers might not be the best for sustainability but it was taken into consideration from the get go by the Design Studio. A take-back system was implemented in Miyake stores, and in 2012, a new recycling initiative was launched in collaboration with partners, making it possible to turn used Pleats Please products into energy.
From Autumn Winter 2007, this pleated top features a roulette table print and is part of a capsule of short and long sleeve tops, dresses, and skirts, rendered in 3 different colors.
Measurements:
Shoulders 30cm
Length 59cm
Chest 39cm
Hem 39cm
Measurements are unstretched and can accommodate to a XL when stretched