Hushed stillness and Japanese craft at Issey Miyake’s Paris show
- Last updated: March 10, 2026 | 09:59 ..
Sparkling dust drifted across the runway inside the Carrousel du Louvre on Friday as Issey Miyake asked a question few fashion houses dare voice: When should a designer stop designing? Satoshi Kondo’s answer was a fall-winter collection of rare stillness and force. Titled “Creating, Allowing,” it pulled at the tension between shaping a garment and letting cloth and body do the work alone. That tension sits at the core of the house Miyake founded in 1970 and that Kondo has led since 2019. Miyake, who died in 2022, always started with a single piece of cloth.
He believed the space between fabric and body — what the Japanese call “ma” — mattered as much as the garment itself. Kondo has honoured that philosophy while carving a quieter, more contemplative path of his own. Pared-down vocals hung in the darkened space. Models moved slowly. The clothes spoke in hushed tones that demanded you lean in. The collection opened in muted restraint.
Oversize sweaters in off-white had elongated shoulders that sloped like soft architecture, white shirt cuffs extending past the sleeves in a surreal, almost preppy touch. Dark suits featured asymmetrical front panels that folded across the body like an unfinished thought.
Voluminous black trenches came belted with bands that evoked martial arts. Fabric headpieces-wrapped tight around the skull-were a defining feature, lending the models a monastic quality. Black parkas sat beneath square-shouldered suits, while puffball skirts billowed like clouds, built to hold their shape in midair. The palette stayed deliberately muted. The house notes put it this way: a stone placed in a space speaks through its silence. That was the mood. Kondo was designing the absence as much as the presence.
The restraint broke in carefully chosen moments, when ancient Japanese craft collided with modern technology. A bright yellow pleated wrap cut through the monochrome like a crack of light. The pleats were hand-wrung then machine-set, giving them a lively, almost primitive energy that rippled with the body’s movement.
But the most striking pieces were rigid bodices and peplums in solid red, made of lacquered washi paper - layers of hand-torn sheets set on 3D-printed molds by craftspeople in the Echizen region of Fukui Prefecture, then sent to artisans in Kyoto for multiple coats of lacquer. The result was a shell-like form that contoured the body with the quiet authority of armor.
The house calls the technique Urushi Body, rooted in the concept of the obi sash and the bustier. In a season full of noise across Paris, Issey Miyake offered something rarer: the discipline to leave things unfinished, and the confidence to call that beautiful.
Paris Fashion Week delivered a forceful reminder of why it remains a capital of fashion, with blockbuster celebrity front rows and collections that are tackling big ideas about power, craft and the female body. Oprah Winfrey turned heads at both Stella McCartney and Chloé.
Associated Press