“Through his eyes Penn-san reinterprets the clothes, gives them new breath, and presents them to me from a new vantage point”
– Issey Miyake on Irving Penn
Irving Penn, Issey Miyake Onion Flower Bud Coat, New York, 1987
From 1986 til 1999, Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake (22 April 1938 – 5 August 2022) and American photographer Irving Penn (June 16, 1917 – October 7, 2009) collaborated in a sublime mixing of fashion and photography. When Miyake first saw Penn’s photographs of his clothes for an American Vogue editorial in 1983 [below], he exclaimed, “Wow! I never thought of looking at clothes in that way! The clothes have been given a voice of their own!”
Irving Penn for American Vogue – Issey Miyake Elephant Crepe (Front View), New York, 1983
Much of the pair’s relationship was long distance. Miyake insisted on Penn being unhindered and, so he wasn’t there for the New York shoots. And Penn, for his part, never once attended Miyake’s Paris shows.
Penn was supported by Miyake’s makeup artist and photographer Tyen, his close associate and stylist Midori Kitamura and hairstylist John Sahag. Penn would sit at a table with a pencil and paper and sketch as models wearing the designs were directed. Polaroids were then taken in preparation for the main shoot.
‘For me, the photo sittings were always filled with surprises,” Kitamura told the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. “I was the one who was supposed to be the most familiar with the clothes but during the course of the photo sessions, I watched them transform before Mr. Penn’s lens. It was an entirely new world for me. Miyake would then inevitably be surprised and moved by the photos I brought back to him from New York, and the perspectives they mirrored would, in some way or another, provide inspiration for the subsequent collection.”
…
“The photography took four days, ending at 6 pm with a break for lunch, which we all ate together.
The studio was silent. There was no music, no talking. It was very tense. All you could hear was the occasional instruction from Penn and the click of the shutter. It was the same kind of tension that surrounded Miyake during his preparations for the collection in Paris. As the photography progressed, it felt like I was watching an opera.”
Issey Miyake staircase dress (1994) by irving penn
“Through his eyes Penn-san reinterprets the clothes, gives them new breath, and presents them to me from a new vantage point—one that I may not have been aware of, but had been subconsciously trying to capture. Without Penn-san’s guidance, I probably could not have continued to find new themes with which to challenge myself, nor could I have arrived at new solutions.”
– Issey Miyake in Irving Penn: a career in photography, the Art Institute of Chicago, 1997
Issey Miyake collection poster for spring:summer 1994 – by Irving Penn. poster design by Ikko Tanaka © Irving Penn Foundation
“His designs are not fashionable, but women of style are enriched by them and are made more beautiful by them.”
– Irving Penn on Issey Miyake
Irving Penn, Issey Miyake Poncho and Apron Belt, New York, 1987
Irving Penn, Issey Miyake Design with Black Fan, New York, 1987
“Penn’s photographs allow me to see my own designs”
– Issey Miyake
Irving Penn, Issey Miyake Fashion- Face Covered with Hair (A), New York, 1991
Irving Penn, Issey Miyake Fashion, White and Black, New York, 1990
Via: Irving Penn and Issey Miyake: visual dialogue at 21 21 design sight Tokyo; Irving Penn Regards the Work of Issey Miyake, published in 1999 and edited by Mark Holborn
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