Latest news with #PleatsPlease
Daily Mirror
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
This is the most elegant style trend for the summer– and you can shop it from £20
Pleats are the season's chicest trend, and we've found where to shop stylish buys from Karen Millen, Monsoon, and more starting from £20 There's a style trend that's taking over this summer, and it's as elegant as it is timeless: pleats. Once reserved for occasionwear, tennis skorts, or school uniforms, pleats have had a major fashion glow-up, thanks to designers like Issey Miyake, who famously turned the technique into a sculptural art form with his Pleats Please collection. This season, pleats are everywhere, from floaty midi skirts to structured trousers and even breezy summer dresses. They're a chic, easy-to-wear trend that looks good with just about everything and is so comfy. They look just as cool styled with sandals and a white t-shirt as they do dressed up with heels for a party. And the best part? You don't need a designer budget to get the look. We've found the most flattering pleated pieces to can shop, starting from £20. KAREN MILLEN If you want to add a little drama to the pleats trend, why not try out this chic cape top from Karen Millen. Available in vibrant red and with matching pleated trousers to match, you'll be standing our from the crowd (in the best way!) with this cool matching set. PHASE EIGHT This halterneck top from Phase Eight is a standout piece thanks to its luxe pleating and exclusive in-house print. Whether worn as a set with the matching trousers for a summer event or dressed down with denim for day-to-night style, this versatile look works for any occasion. JOANNA HOPE Add of a pop of colour to your summer wardrobe with this statement maxi from Joanna Hope. The elasticated waist makes for a comfortable fit, while the detachable belt cinches the silhouette for a flattering shape. With a stylish maxi length, it's a perfect choice for weddings, black-tie events, or summer parties. MONSOON This Sienna Miller-approved maxi dress perfectly fits the current boho trend, filled with delicate floral motifs and its airy silhouette. This dress is equal parts effortless as it is eye-catching, making it ideal for garden parties, brunches, or summer weddings. Simply throw on a pair of platform heels, and you're good to go. H&M Made from a stylish crinkled weave, these H&M trousers feature an elasticated waist for a comfy fit, handy side pockets, and an unfinished edge at the hems for a cool-girl, laid-back vibe. Pair them with sandals and a linen shirt for easy warm-weather dressing.
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
Issey Miyake transforms the Cartier Foundation into living sculpture garden
PARIS -- As Paris wilted under the ruthless June sun, Issey Miyake sent out a battalion of intergalactic fashion soldiers at the Cartier Foundation Thursday, shimmering between art and menswear apparel in a spectacle where even the light was a player. The late-morning sun bounced sharply off the art museum's monumental steel pillars, forcing some guests to slide their seats to escape the dazzling reflections — an impromptu game of musical chairs set to a pulsing, kinetic soundtrack. This Paris Fashion Week season finds the Miyake house in the midst of transition. In January, Paris bid adieu to Homme Plissé — Miyake's pleated cult favorite that had anchored the city's menswear calendar since 2019 — as the brand shifted its focus to nomadic shows, most recently appearing under the Tuscan sun. The torch in Paris has now been passed to IM Men, the last line personally conceived by Issey Miyake before his death in 2022. Thursday's show marked IM Men's return to the Paris stage, under the direction of designers Sen Kawahara, Yuki Itakura, and Nobutaka Kobayashi. The theme, 'Dancing Texture,' nodded to the ceramic artistry of Shoji Kamoda, but also to the surreal choreography on display. Models appeared to roll, tilt, and swing through the light, their movements somewhere between ballet and a slow-motion video game. Occasionally, a guest would squint, unsure if they were watching a runway show or a heat-induced hallucination. The crowd — equal parts Parisian cool, visiting editors, and those for whom a pleated culotte is a spiritual calling — dodged the sun's glare and fanned themselves in the heat, shifting for both comfort and the best sightline. The first model glided out in a mad, angular hat, setting the tone for a parade of tin man-meets-space ninja silhouettes designed for dance floors or distant planets. The clothes themselves looked as if they had been engineered for a new climate — or perhaps a new species. Surfaces peeled, rippled, and shimmered, metallic foils flashed against the sun, and jacquard weaves evoked the carved waves of Kamoda's ceramics. Vermilion and white motifs burst forth alongside a near-neon green, courtesy of upcycled fishing nets. A coat unzipped into a dramatic collar while some blousons and pants, when laid flat, formed perfect circles — a wink at Kamoda's wheel-thrown plates. Miyake, who died in 2022, loomed large over the collection, his vision unmistakable in every engineered pleat and playful transformation. IM Men is the last line he conceived — a living laboratory for innovation, risk, and occasional absurdity, now energetically interpreted by a younger team. Even in his absence, his legacy is alive in every joke, fold, and jolt of surprise on the runway. Born in Hiroshima in 1938, Miyake rose from postwar Japan to become a global force, transforming fashion in the 1980s and '90s with his radical, sculptural vision. He pioneered heat-set pleating and created lines like Pleats Please and A-POC that blurred the boundaries between art, science, and daily life. Miyake's designs liberated fabric, allowing it to move with the body and imagination alike. Of course, the fashion house's embrace of the avant-garde still courts danger. Thursday's spectacle occasionally veered into excess, with kinetic art and sci-fi headgear that threatened to upstage the clothes themselves — a familiar Miyake risk. But the best moments, like a pared-back tangerine overcoat that floated past, proved restraint can sometimes steal the show.
The Guardian
06-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Issey Miyake brings his revolutionary piece of cloth to Tokyo, 1999
It is rehearsal day for Japanese designer Issey Miyake and the 61-year-old fashion innovator is pumped. This is his first Tokyo fashion show in five years and he's keen to share his new concept in DIY clothing: 'A revolutionary idea called A-POC' – an abbreviation of A Piece of Cloth – writes Tamsan Blanchard in the Observer Magazine on 25 April 1999. 'He has not been so excited about one of his own products since Pleats Please was launched in 1993.' For Miyake's Paris show the previous autumn, an A-POC – a single strip of fabric – was 'transformed into a capsule wardrobe before our very eyes,' gasps Blanchard. 'Lengths of white fabric were laid out on the floor and a small team of assistants set to work with their scissors. A snip here, a snip there and voilà! A pair of knickers… More scissor work and there was a bra top.' A skirt, hat, socks and more besides followed: one piece of fabric, one capsule wardrobe. The message: yes, you can try this at home! 'I'm not interested in selling myself,' Miyake confides, adding that he sometimes observes his customers in the Pleats Please store on London's Brook Street. They are nice people, 'ordinary'. For his part, 'I never tried to be like a superstar or a famous designer. The only thing I wanted was to be very proud of what I'm doing.' He wasn't proud of himself back when 'his clothes were beginning to look more at home in a textiles gallery than on the woman in the street'. Following one Paris show, he realised he'd forgotten the importance of everyday life, so he got himself a rucksack, some underwear and a toothbrush and went to Greece. He hand-washed the underwear, took stock. Three years later, in 1988, functional, affordable Pleats Please was born. The A-POC retails in the UK for £470. Too high, and Miyake knows it. Fashion victims are not his target market. 'I'm not interested in high-maintenance women who take one hour for hair, one hour to dress, one hour for makeup. Disaster!'
