Satoshi Kondo talks Vogue through his joyful debut for Issey Miyake spring/summer 2020

Even the Japanese organization expert Marie Kondo would struggle to find a look that didn’t spark joy in the debut collection presented by Satoshi Kondo (no relation) for Issey Miyake during Paris Fashion Week spring/summer 2020. Featuring coats made from parachute material that billowed with air resistance as models glided around the showspace (Le Centquatre; a multipurpose cultural centre in the 19th arrondissement) on electric skateboards; lampshade like sculptures that descended from the ceiling and morphed into dresses; and bias-cut silk jersey creations that oscillated around dancers’ bodies – it was as though Miyake’s words, “designing is an act of discovery”, were woven into their very fabric.

Over the course of the past half a century, Miyake has designed clothes that honour what is known in Japanese as , or the space between two entities (in Miyake’s case the body and garment). The result: timeless designs that suit any shape, as Miyake says “making clothes that everyone can wear means making clothes for people who live with us, our contemporaries – ordinary people.” 

Kondo has been part of Miyake’s story now for 13 years, having worked as a designer for the brand’s Pleats Please and Homme Plissé lines. In his first sit down interview since assuming the role of head designer at Issey Miyake (taking over from Yoshiyuki Miyamae, who is working on a new, soon-to-be-announced project with the brand) the 35-year-old discusses his ideas behind the collection and Miyake’s fine philosophy of melding tradition and innovation. 

What sparked your interest in fashion design and led you to pursuing it as a career?
I was born in Kyoto [Japan], and I had a pretty normal Japanese upbringing. From a young age, I was constantly drawing. My mother is a qualified sewing teacher — she always made her own clothes, so that definitely had an influence on me. 

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Even before I joined Issey Miyake in 2007, from my days as a student at Ueda College of Fashion in Osaka, I was moved by Mr Miyake’s method of streamlining garment production through the A-POC system [a production process using long tubes of knitted cloth, which can be cut without any wastage] and its reduction of waste fabric. 

While I love fashion and the industry as a whole, what drew me to design is this very Japanese idea of clothing the body. Every morning, like most people, I wake up, take a shower and stand in front of my wardrobe and think: ‘Well, what shall I wear today?’ The joy that can be found in this ritual of getting dressed every day, of finding an outfit that can make you happy for the whole day — that’s what inspires me. I want to create collections that emulate that joy.

Why was it important for you to make your spring/summer 2020 show performative?
The traditional runway format is fine, but I wanted the presentation to reflect the theme of the collection; to show this image of people getting together, getting dressed and being really joyful. In order to express that idea, I worked with our show director [and choreographer] Daniel Ezralow to find an unconventional approach to the fashion show. I started with sketching the designs and everything grew from that.

The show had different chapters to it and a sense of evolution. What was the thought process behind this decision?
With Issey Miyake, there is always an idea of progression by adding pieces of clothing. So we start with the basics and these colours should be subtle, muted even. Then we add layers, primary colours, which graduate into a wider variety of more vibrant hues. There’s not a conscious decision about what colours to use or eliminate, nor is it a response to anything specific happening in the world right now. The process is organic — I like to think of the collection as a bud blossoming into a flower.

The collection is divided into chapters or keywords that have informed the design. What are they, and how are they manifested in the clothes?
On ‘draw and connect’: this is my first womenswear collection for Issey Miyake, so I had this idea of returning to the basics and fundamentals, and a notion of being naked in a literal and abstract sense. The first seven looks are essentially blank canvases intended to represent the diversity of skin tones. I chose a jersey fabric that stretches, but also drapes over the contours of the body really beautifully. 

From here, we move into a series of printed garments. The motif was designed by our in-house team and depicts two people embracing — a primitive gesture of warmth. There is another print consisting of abstract depictions of internal organs, with the idea of communicating our inner energies and, again, warmth.

On ‘overlap and dye’: throughout the collection, I have combined tradition and innovation. For example, we used a method of embroidery known as — this literally means ‘little stabs’ and dates back to the Edo period [1615 to 1868] — on a trouser and skirt suit in this section. It’s a running stitch that was originally used to reinforce worn-out clothing but here, if you look closely, you can see that it spells out ‘Issey Miyake’ in tiny letters. 

The pattern on the dress and coat, meanwhile, is achieved using a resist-dyeing technique called . First, we pleat the fabric by hand to get the nice, crisp folds, and then clamp it between two boards before submerging it in dye. This way, the dye only touches the folds and the colour graduates to white at the centre of each pleat.

On ‘swing and extend’: I wanted all of these pieces to feel light and airy. The coats catch the air like parachutes, so the models rode electric skateboards in the show to demonstrate this. All of the fringing in these garments has been made using the A-POC system. The most time-consuming part of this process is creating different computer programmes for each design. It’s still probably the most efficient and sustainable way to create clothes because you don’t need a sewing machine and it minimises waste.

On ‘move and bounce’: this series really speaks for itself and the joy is found in the movement of the clothes. We gave the dresses their bounce with a technique used in the Pleats Please line. We used straight machine-pleating working horizontally across the fabric; after that, we hand-pleated the fabric in concentric circles. Combined, these [two types of] pleats give the fabric the effect of a spring. Again, subconsciously, it brings together the ideas of tradition and innovation.

How are you combining Issey Miyake’s design philosophy with your own?
I oversee the collection as a whole, but we work as a team with a specialist in every field, from print to knitting. Mr Miyake is still heavily involved in the whole process and I regularly show him the collection at different stages of production. He will give his critique, but he maintains that I should be myself and express what I want to express. If you are brave and confident with your designs, he says, then people will feel confident wearing them — our clothes should always make people feel confident and proud.

One of the first pieces in the collection I designed is an overcoat with a blue print — the one with the couple embracing [on it] — and when you open it up, you can see it is made from a square piece of cloth draped over the body. Mr Miyake always starts his designs with a square piece of cloth, which uses clean, minimal cutting and sewing — that concept has never changed. We always try to incorporate traditional techniques into our designs and combine this with Mr Miyake’s attitude of always moving forward and not turning back. Always striving to create something better, something more advanced.