ISSEY MIYAKE

Issey Miyake is a Japanese fashion designer known for his innovations with fabric and his use of technology to produce interesting and practical garments. 

Miyake's extensive knowledge of fabrics led to an innovation in garment pleating that uses a heat press to add permanent pleats to garments that were already cut and sewn. Other innovative fashions from Miyake include A-POC (acronym for "a piece of clothing") which are tubes of fabric that can be cut into a variety of shapes and styles by the purchaser, and the me Issey Miyake line (also known as "Cauliflower" outside the Asian market), a line of one-size-fits-all shirts that stretch to fit the wearer and are sold in plastic tubes.

Miyake's fashions and perfumes reflect a sense of humor and make use of multi-lingual puns. A-POC, for example, sounds like the English word "Epoch." When Miyake launched his first perfume, L'eau d'Issey for women in 1992, the name is a homonym for the French word l'Odyssée ("odyssey" in English). A Scent by Issey Miyake, launched in 2009, could be read as "ascent by Issey Miyake." Miyake also maintains a store in Japan called ELLTOB TEP ("pet bottle" spelled backwards) which sells his entire line.