For their menswear offering this season, Issey Miyake decided not to show a new collection from their Homme Plissé line, as they have traditionally done. Instead, the spotlight shone on IM MEN, a menswear line launched in 2021 with the aim of pursuing “new possibilities of clothes-making with respect to the human body.” Much like with the A-POC ABLE line, the central philosophy of IM MEN goes back to Issey Miyake himself and the concept of “a piece of cloth.” Essentially, it means that a piece of clothing can be constructed from a single piece of cloth, which leads to as little waste as possible throughout the construction process. A neat result of this scrupulous process is that it also creates some pretty incredible garments.

The title of the show was Fly with IM MEN and it featured the models running through the showspace (a 16th-century monastery) with pieces of clothes held above them with two hands, like Olympic athletes holding their countries’ flags aloft. Naturally, the theme was flight. We saw a new series of pieces called Fly, which can be worn upside down and, depending on how you button them, can form numerous different silhouettes. In the Flat Drape series, several flowing looks were all formed from a single piece of square cloth. And, in Heron, we saw the return of Ultrasuede. Yes, the material once synonymous with the American designer Halston found new life in the hands of the IM MEN team, being used to construct lightweight garments with die-cut patterning.

It was another tremendously exciting outing for Issey Miyake and a collection where pleats, though present on some pieces, were very much at a minimum. The brand continues to grow in this new era, creating a whole new language and set of codes practically every season.