Issey Miyake asked an intriguing question this season: What if garments are conscious? What if instead of people wearing clothes, the clothes wore people? It’s this type of thinking, asking these kinds of questions, that makes Issey Miyake stand out every season.

The first looks to hit the runway were all lumps and bumps. The t-shirts had Frankenstein shoulders, the trousers were flayed open, revealing more trousers beneath, the bags looked like plain paper shopping bags, but silky. These silhouettes were very much in line with the direction that the brand has been suggesting for the past few seasons. Back in March, their FW25 collection was full of dresses with other dresses printed on them, skew-whiff tailoring, and bags that became tops. For SS26, that new vision was furthered. Now, the tailoring was entirely deconstructed with coats that were attached to the front of shirts, trousers that were clearly once jackets, and shirts with plackets that meandered down the sleeves.

A series of looks in the middle of the collection spoke to “the state of excessive consumption of consumerism—when the act of buying becomes so overwhelming that it’s all consuming.” They did this by being made from stretchy jersey and filled with junky, quotidian objects — Sharpies, cups, even a watering can. These gave way to some more playfully inside-out tailored looks.

There were some bold printed dresses that featured palm trees and plants, which were then echoed in a series of dresses that featured sharp darts of fabric flying off in every direction. The collection was then rounded out by a series of tubular knit pieces, which felt distinctly within the more classic heritage of Issey Miyake, with their hints of pleating and pockets in all the wrong places.

On foot, the collaboration with Camper continued with a brand new model, the Karst Finch. Taking the classic Camper Karst silhouette and injecting it with a distinctly Issey Miyake sense of playfulness, this new shoe looks to its namesake bird, the finch, to convey a sense of colourful freedom.