Iconic Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake dies at 84

Iconic Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake died at age 84. Miyake was suffering from cancer. Miyake is known for creating a pleated style of clothing that doesn’t wrinkle. He also produced the famed turtleneck sweater deceased Apple founder Steve Jobs is known to sport. Miyake, who became a fashion powerhouse in Japan died of liver cancer on August 5.

Born in Hiroshima, Miyake was inspired to become a fashion designer after reading his sister’s fashion magazines. He was seven when an atomic bomb was dropped on the city while he was in school. Miyake hasn’t talked much about the event later in life.

In 2009, writing in the New York Times as part of a campaign to get then-US President Barack Obama to visit the city, he said he did not want to be labelled as “the designer who survived” the bomb, Reuters reported.

Miyake who studied graphic design at a Tokyo art university learnt fashion design in Paris. There, he went on to work with famed fashion designers Guy Laroche and Hubert de Givenchy, after which he headed to New York. He then returned to Japan in 1970 and established the Miyake Studio of Design. In the 1980s he developed the pleated way of making clothes– by wrapping fabrics between layers of paper and putting them into a heat press. These garments were tested for freedom of movement on dancers– they passed the test and held shape. This led to him developing the famed ‘Pleats Please’ line.