Issey Miyake - East Meets West
Publisher: Heibonsha
Year: 1978
Format: Softcover
Edition: 1st Edition
Condition: Very Good
Pages: 216
Size: 36,5 x 25cm
Published in 1978 by Heibonsha, designed by the legendary Japanese graphic designer Ikko Tanaka and stunningly illustrated with color and b/w photographs by some of the best photographers in the world showing models wearing designs by Miyake, this very rare and beautiful book is an overview of his work, covering the years when he refined his fundamental concept of “one piece of cloth”, merging the labels of “East” and “West”, and it's the first monograph of a living fashion designer to be published in the world. Miyake sees himself as part of a generation in limbo. “We were the first really raised with Hollywood movies and Hershey bars, the first who had to look in another direction for a new identity,” he wrote.
“We dreamed between two worlds.” Miyake also explained that while working in Paris during the 1960s, he discovered that what was supposed to be a disadvantage—his lack of Western heritage—could really be an advantage. “It freed me,” he said. “I had nowhere else to go but forward.” He used the title of his book Issey Miyake: East Meets West to make a statement that “the two polarities had become one” whereby “future generations will mingle even more”.