Irving Penn on Issey Miyake

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People were burned, lying on top of each other, and others gathered at a stream for water. I found my mother, who was burned over half her body, the following day. I asked where she was receiving treatment and went to see her. Irving Penn: Vintage Prints from the Series "Earthly Bodies," 1949–1950, Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York, December 6 –January 19, 1991. There are people who experienced tragedy in Hiroshima and people who suffered in Fukushima due to the nuclear accident. I wonder how things will change in the world from now on. [Actress] Sayuri Yoshinaga continues poetry readings about the atomic bombing, and that is a truly great thing. I wrote a letter to President Obama, asking him to visit Hiroshima in 2009: I couldn’t stop myself. Those who speak up are great regardless of whether they are famous. In the present age, each person has to ask themselves again how to live. Penn, Irving. Irving Penn: Photographs in Platinum Metals—Images 1947-1975. London: Marlborough Gallery, 1981.

Penn, Irving. Irving Penn: Printemps des arts de Monte Carlo (exhibition catalogue). Paris: Beba, 1986. The Vogue editors continued to give him unprecedented autonomy over his shoots, even flying him to Paris in 1949 so that he could benefit from the highbrow aesthetic of haute couture. Penn returned with what became his signature style -- carefully staged photographs of models resembling living sculpture. Lisa Fonssagrives, one of Penn's many models, married him in 1950 and two years later gave birth to a son, Tom. They remained married until her death in 1992.Models present creations by Mr. Miyake in 2018. Often Mr. Miyake used solid colors of blues, greens, crimson, or printed with flowers, tattoos, or gunpowder. Bertrand Guay/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Tváří v tvář (Face to Face: The F.C. Gundlach Collection), Langhans Galerie, Prague, Czech Republic, September 30–December 4, 2004. Grundberg, Andy. Alexey Brodovitch. Documents of American Design Series. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989. These comments are excerpted from the article “Issey Miyake Talks About A-Bomb,” which appeared in the December 6, 2015, edition of the Japanese newspaper The Yomiuri Shimbun.

Penn, Irving. “Sign Language in Europe and India: Posters from Four War–Shattered Countries Seen By Vogue's Photographer Irving Penn.” Vogue 107 (March 1946): 148–49. The designer, known for his signature heat-pressed pleating technique, saw fashion as inherently optimistic and clothing as ‘like beautiful architecture for the body’ Born in 1938, Miyake grew up in a Japan devastated by WWII, and his world was subsequently shaped by the clash of eastern and western cultures. After moving to Paris in 1965, he studied at the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture – working at Guy Laroche and Givenchy (and a short stint in New York at Geoffrey Beene) – before forming his own studio in 1970. Endlessly fascinated by the space between the human body and the clothes that encase it, Miyake frequently experimented with new fabrics and silhouettes – folding clothes in an origami-like style, or extending them far beyond the confines of the body.

Penn, Irving. Irving Penn: Earthly Bodies. 76 Photographs of the Female Nude, Negatives and Silver Prints Made in 1949–1950 (exhibition catalogue). New York: Marlborough Gallery, 1980. Stathatos, John. "Die Politische Dimension: Linke Gegen Rechte Fotografie." Kunstforum International no.129 (January/April 1995): 144–57. Mr. Miyake rarely discussed that day — or other aspects of his personal history — “preferring to think of things that can be created, not destroyed, and that bring beauty and joy,” he wrote in the essay. Irving Penn: Still Life, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, Austria, June 8, 2019–July 16, 2019. Traveled to: Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, November 7, 2019–February 15, 2020.

Miyake believes that you have to learn from fabric every single time you use a new one: “The better you know it, the more you keep learning,” he said. “The weight, the body, the fall of the fabric all determine what it will eventually be made into.” Miyake sees that it is the designer’s job to work with manufacturers to create clothes from materials in such a way that those who wear them have “the freedom of expression and its resulting joy.” — P.M. Portraits from the Museum’s Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, May 4–July 5,1960. Reinstalled: July 6–September 18, 1960. Hambourg, Maria Morris, et al. Irving Penn: Centennial (exhibition catalogue). New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2017. Mr. Miyake with models in 1984. He was one of the first Japanese designers to show in Paris. Pierre Guillaud/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Blume, Lesley M. M. "Photographic Memories." Wall Street Journal Magazine (March 27, 2017): 106–11. There was nowhere to study couture, so, once Japan permitted travel abroad on a tiny budget, he went to Paris in 1965 for a course at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, and interned for Guy Laroche and Hubert de Givenchy. The important Parisian education, though, was the student protests of 1968, revolting against the haute-bourgeoisie, usual customers for couture. Miyake sided with the students, wanting to make clothes, both wilder and more useful, for ordinary people, unconstrained by age, size, gender or fit. Underfoot: Photographs by Irving Penn, Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York, October 6–November 5, 2005. Traveled to: Art Institute of Chicago, January 17–May 12, 2013. Penn, Irving. Irving Penn: Cranium Architecture (exhibition catalogue). New York: Pace/MacGill Gallery, 1988. Mr. Miyake in 1985 with two of his models in Paris. He began experimenting with pleating in 1988. Pierre Guillaud/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images