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We live in an age of information explosion, but sadly the ability to take the good with the bad is diminishing due to the speed at which information travels. Yes, look back at FW24 Men's Fashion Week and you'll see that everything has become extremely "boring" (especially in the post-epidemic era) - many of the old favourites that I've always respected are playing it safe. Fashion journalist André Leon Talley once said, "Beauty is in famine". Maison Margiela, led by John Galliano, has emerged as a "standout" in this desert of beauty, causing a lot of foot stomping and "Bravo's". We can see that the public still has aesthetic ability, only that we are tired of it, neglect it, and even forget it.

Last year, a "Quiet Luxury" swept through the fashion world, with the public talking about how to look classy in the basics. This year, whether in Milan or Paris, the fashion world seems to have switched to realism, with a habit of reflecting on the present and its frankly "mundane problems", creating metaphors for social media and selling clothes that belong only to you. Unfortunately, there is nothing more mundane than the present - simply because we are in it and desperately need to find a shred of self-awareness in the light of the growing economic downturn. To paraphrase fashion writer Carlo Mazzoni in a recent article, "Numbed by emotion, we need a truly artistic and dramatic fashion show that can create 'dreams'".

For many, the word "dream" is still the main characteristic of this industry, which is much more involved in design than in fashion itself. That's why Galliano's haute couture show for Margiela (or "Artisanal" as Margiela defines it), was a real shock for everyone present, even for those who were on Live. Clearly, Galliano is not a designer whose mark can be seen everywhere on the couture street corner. He is "pyrotechnic".

If, as early as 1995, the year Galliano was appointed by Givenchy, Bernard Arnault wanted him to replace the founder Hubert, it seems appropriate to understand that the value of Haute Couture lies entirely in its inescapable humanist and spiritual values. For Margiela, too, its handmade collections began with a tendency to reuse and reassemble things that were no longer used, an avant-garde intuition that later gave rise to "upcycling".

Years ago, a critic described director Atom Egoyan's film Exotica as "a murky aquarium in which the ghosts of human desire swim", and a similar spectacle could be used to describe Margiela's show. The first full moon of the year shone over the Pont Alexandre III in a rainy, smoky, humid atmosphere that spilled over the steps to the quayside along the Seine and dampened the decadent Parisian underworld. A giant light on a boom enhances the ghostly glow of the pavement and the water, as if the effect had been achieved by a camera with a long exposure and a forced flash.

Everything in sight is inspired by Fauvist artist Kees van Dongen's brooding muses of the early 1930s (in his eyes the body is blue, the sky pink and green) and photographs of twilight taken by photographer Brassaï. Inside and out, a few coffee tables sit in the shadow of a bridge arch, an indoor bar is littered with dirty plates and ceramic shards, the walls are covered in peeling gilded frames and police wanted posters, and guests sit in worn bentwood chairs, pushing violet-flavoured cocktails. In a moment of time travelling, Brassaï's "dirty Paris" is back.

The funny thing is that at this show one can talk about fashion, but not about the clothes themselves. Look at the thieves in corsets looking forward and backward, the sickly dolls that look like burlesque, the downtrodden walking in the cold in deformed coats, the thin-browed prostitutes in heavy make-up, or the various chilly bystanders looking at the pleasure-seekers that are all of us, all of us are part of this big show. Exaggerated make-up, like disturbing porcelain dolls or wax figures smeared with oil, messy Alphonse Mucha ubiquitous pompadours and ragged patchwork hats express a romantic torment, a quest for the dramatic taste that is inherent in every decadent human being.

The voluptuous nudity within the corsets is exposed as if the vintage, broken garments were being devoured by moths until they reached their most perfect, intangible souls, a disturbing combination of sensuality and sensual expression without warmth, even with a surreal grotesqueness from director Tim Burton. Then, some of the models' faces were erased, and brushstrokes printed on the fabric of painted stockings outlined their breasts. There is no false optimism in this show, but rather a story with dark humour, a Parisian mystery comparable to that of the French writer Eugene Sue, a story that finally breaks away from describing, commenting and reflecting on the obsessions of the moment.

The show also reminded me of the French author Charles Baudelaire and the timeless line from his poem Danse Macabre (later interpreted as an orchestral work, aka "The Dance of the Skulls") "Ô charme d'un né ant follement attifé (Oh, the charm of the nihilistic beauty of crazy decorations! ant follement attifé (Oh, the vain beauty of madly adorned charms!)". The parade of skeletons and naked bodies in front of us can be linked to the deaths and desires of Parisian history. Fashion, as a field that manifests human creativity, traverses all the shades of the emotional palette, even the most primitive and disturbing ones, and everything has to be sacred and exalted. For too long, we have been accustomed to thinking of fashion as a "luxury", and we have marginalised the voices of "outlier" designers such as AF Vandervorst and John Alexander Skelton. Over the years, the fashion industry has succumbed to the commercial imperative to always speak to the public in positive terms, abandoning a range of human emotions that are both introspective and dark. In retrospect, in the decade dominated by Galliano and McQueen, it was still possible to aestheticise evil without offending the integrity and impeccable morality of the viewer - if you're longing for a nightmare to find joy in, look no further than Andrew Groves' 1999 collection. Check out Andrew Groves' Spring/Summer 1999 collection, or Carol Christian Poell's horrific runway show. Fashion does like to dream, but it forgets that examining the nightmare is an important part of it.

So what is Galliano's nightmare? For example, he is himself a master of finding beauty in the forgotten and the dishonoured. Looking back at his anti-Semitic comments during the Dior period, he is in a way a sharp man, and even more so, he doesn't care to express his true thoughts in public (regardless of whether they are right or wrong). He can face his own nightmares head on and make the design itself present a distinctive beauty, the message conveyed, the atmosphere created and the narrative established are far from the current growth story of the top tier companies. But interestingly, even those who lack the necessary critical tools or background in culture and art were able to be captivated by the show, and were even willing to understand the slightly negative elements.

Galliano hasn't shown haute couture since July 2022, when he created a multi-layered piece around a film about young lovers on the run. Right now, he returned to couture, leading a team that spent months on the details. From a decadent countess in corrugated cardboard robes and a tiara, echoing Galliano's famous 1984 "Les Incroyables" graduation show (a reference to the royal palaces of the French Revolution), to the bodies of puppets on strings or fabrics dripping with flesh and blood, the Belle Époque aristocracy is a new breed of woman, a new generation of women. The corseted waists of Belle Époque aristocrats and the padded silhouettes of Christian Dior's mid-century haute couture are all relevant to Galliano's past work. Galliano used to express the most extravagant things in his work, using 12 months of conception and nine months of production to create light and shadow and water and oil stains on fabrics made from scraps of lace and tulle. Now Galliano has matured, emotionally, visually and psychologically, and is celebrating his first decade at Margiela by going back to his roots.

Some may say that this show is not Margiela at all, but you have to realise that the moment the designer himself left the brand, it was the end of an era. At the end of the day, "Make it your own" - this was Maison Margiela's message and hope for Galliano. And indeed, Galliano has done just that. Here, technology was pushed to a new peak. Inventions and experiments succeeded in blending traditional methods with new technologies, expanding the meaning of couture in an extraordinary way. Silicone treatments made fabrics look as if they had been soaked, mopped up or rained on; tweeds were glued and crinkled, then boiled to shrink the fabric into shape; coats were made from layers of organza and chiffon, light as a feather and printed in heavy wool, then wrapped in tulle (a kind of "millet-feuille" filter of organza and felt) and underneath, the coat was made from a layer of "silk" and a layer of "silk" and a layer of "silk". "millet-feuille" made of organza and felt, under a layer of wool crepe "trompe l'oeil" printed with the texture of classic gentlemen's cloth); "porcelain" soft neckpieces, actually made of polished leather; "série" soft neckpieces; "série" soft neckpieces, actually made of polished leather; and "série" soft neckpieces, actually made of polished leather. leather; "Seamlace" refers to garments made entirely of inlaid lace pieces, while "emotional tailoring" is "a new form of tailoring that gives to clothing the unconscious gestures that shape our expressions".

If you've listened to Galliano's "The Memory Of……" podcast from his early days at Margiela, you'll know how much he loves experimenting with fabrics and techniques and giving them outlandish, edgy names to set them apart from the rest of the house. to set them apart from other brands. This time around, the designer and his team have spent the better part of a year in the lab coming up with new fabrics and methods, and his press release lists more than 15 new ways of working (eight of which are firsts) - his personal favourite is a method he calls "Stripe-tease". tease", in which a striped fabric is worked into a block colour and applied to a shimmering fishtail dress that glows in the light.

In a way, the show was a tangible demonstration of the incalculable power of sustainability, and an attempt to show the public the futility of our sentimental attachment to the glamour of Archive. Is there a tomorrow for fashion? With a little less self-hatred and a little less obsession with the past, even today there are still darker areas of the human imagination to be explored.

Galliano has done it so far, so who will be next?

Text by Makoto. Li

Art probably accounts for half of a designer's inspiration pool, with paintings being the most important, and the 3D thinking of sculptures actually accounts for part of the index. The Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti has a strong connection with fashion, having worked with fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli and with fashion designers whose work has been a great source of inspiration.

In 1957, the writer Jean Genet depicted the sculptor Alberto's studio as a 'milky swamp, boiling with rubbish, like a real ditch'. The sculptor's floor, face, hair and clothes were coated in plaster, and every corner was covered in confetti and chunks of paint. Yet here, too, 'the power of fermentation is magical as if by magic, art grows out of rubbish'.

Alberto Giacometti's life story is a long one: born in 1901 in remote Borgonovo, Switzerland, he inherited his family's artistic genes as a painter from an early age - his father, Giovanni Giacometti, was an Impressionist painter who supported his son's interest in art from an early age and encouraged Alberto to come to his studio. His father, Giovanni Giacometti, was an Impressionist who supported his son's interest in art from an early age and encouraged Alberto to come to his studio to paint; his godfather, Cuno Amiet, was an icon of the Fauvists and was a well-known figure in the art world, from his family to his parents' close friends. He learned to paint from an early age.

Alberto was not yet ten years old when he could draw pencil sketches for his revered godfather Amiet, and by the age of twelve or thirteen, he had already gotten the hang of oil painting and made his first sculpture for his brother Diego. But he did not follow his father's instructions for the rest of his life, even in his final painting style - Alberto aspired to (or instead had a substantial impact on) cubism and surrealism, moving towards the avant-garde.

At an early age, Alberto travelled with his father to Italy, where he visited the paintings and artworks of the Renaissance and saw many masterpieces that had a ripple effect on Alberto's mind, most notably the frescoes of the Giotto and the ancient Egyptian civilisation in the National Archaeological Museum in Florence. These were the things he wanted to see, which urged Alberto to absorb new knowledge from them, choosing to return to Paris to immerse himself in the art world. After attending the Geneva Academy of Fine Arts, Alberto moved to Paris in 1922 to study under the famous sculptor Auguste Rodin and his assistant Antoine Bourdelle.

While in Paris, Alberto met the artists Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso and Max Ernst, and the philosophers Jean Paul-Sartre and André Breton. Soon, under the influence of his many friends, Alberto was recognised as a leader in surrealist sculpture and wrote and painted for the magazine Le Surrealisme au Service de la Revolution. Since then, Alberto stopped modelling from life and devoted himself to fantastic fantasy, declaring in 1933 that 'when conscious of the sculptures, they were already in the most perfect state in my mind'.

「Walking Man I」（1961）

From 1935 to 1940, Alberto departed from the Surrealist style and was drawn to Cubism and Primitive Art in his own artistic and literary Paris, where he slowly changed the shape of his work. He began to use bronze for his sculptures, which became thinner and more slender. His distinctive style is evident in 'Walking Man I' (1961), one of his most famous works of art. The sculpture's height contrasts with the extraordinarily slim figure in the life-size work, and the elongated figure with dimples and wrinkles gives the figure a highly sculptural feel. However, the work's excessive thinness and isolation inspired many critics to question Alberto's work, which was unusually lonely after the outbreak of the Second World War.

「Woman With Her Throat Cut 」(1932)

「Hands Holding the Void」

In fact, from 1930-1940, Alberto's work revolved around the themes of 'sex and death'. "Woman With Her Throat Cut' (1932) is an image of rape and murder, with Alberto's more everyday concerns; 'Hands Holding the Void' and 'Imaginary Object' (1934-5), two works known for their 'contradictions', are about the relationship between appearance and touch. One of the recollections that share Alberto's feelings about touching and being touched.

The 1930s were a period of maturity for Alberto Giacometti. He was influenced by the 'Freudian effect', a strong sense of sexuality, obsessive-compulsive disorder and psychological trauma in his work. There are also hints of inspiration from Alberto's circle of friends, as he was close to Man Ray, Joan Miró, André Masson and André Breton, a group of artists who sang about the Surrealist movement.

Alberto's brushstrokes of Georges Bataille.

「Suspended Ball」

As they interacted with each other, Alberto increasingly thought about how to intertwine figures and objects in an illusory space while creating a dreamlike yet realistic visual imagination. For example, when André Breton actively invited Alberto to join the school, he published his 'Suspended Ball' sculpture in 1930, which most critics agree is a classic example of his surrealist work, inspired by the central thinking of Georges Bataille.

Upon his return to Paris in 1945, Alberto's vision led him to escape the miniature. One day, walking out of a cinema on Boulevard Montparnasse, he experienced 'a radical transformation of reality'. At that moment, his vision of the world was dominated by photography (even though 'reality is bipolar apart from the assumed objectivity of cinema'). He felt that this was the first time he had been in this world and was so frightened that he touched pain in his head as he looked around him as if everything around him was isolated from him. Afterwards, he tries to communicate with the outside world and enters a familiar tavern. At that moment, he found that time was frozen, that the waiters appeared in front of him as statues, and that everything had become still.

Elsa Schiaparelli, an iconic figure in the fashion world, has been associated with the surreal genre, and there have been many exchanges between the two. For example, Schiaparelli has a collection of Alberto's sculptures. Alberto has created custom-made gold-plated cameo buttons for the designer, which were shown in an exhibition of buttons at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Art itself has no end; it evolves through time and culture, and Alberto's sculptures are becoming too. Influenced by the Second World War and abstract art, his bronze sculptures are deliberately mottled and even uneven in appearance, like layers of plastered clay, and increasingly large in size and complexity of scale and technique. For example, Woman of Venice II (1956) is about four feet tall, but Tall Woman II is nine feet tall, and the textures of his figures have become increasingly rough and blurred. It is left to the viewer's interpretation.

In the 2015 Christie's New York spring sale, Alberto's Pointing Man fetched $140 million, beating his record of $100 million set in 2010 for The Walking Man. Alberto's bronze sculptures have brought a particular emotion to fashion designers but have also infected fellow artists. For example, the American artist John Baldessari held art and fashion conversation at the Fondazione Prada in Milan in 2010, combining Alberto's tall, slender and frail bronze sculptures with ornate evening wear accessories, reflecting social consciousness through exaggerated proportions.

The Italian leather workshop Guidi directly admits that the brand's mottled, vintage look is somewhat influenced by Alberto's rugged approach. The same leather goods brand Piquadro, which premiered its co-branded mini-collection at Milan Autumn/Winter 2013 Men's Fashion Week, has woven a magnificent image for the brand's clutch bags, half inspired by Alberto's sculptural concept, which was also displayed in bronze.

Rick Owens 2011 SS.

Vika Gazinskaya, a Russian designer, has also confessed that her eponymous label's womenswear muse is not only inspired by architectural influences such as Rem Koolhaas but also by Alberto Giacometti. He is part of the pocket list. For Rick Owens Spring/Summer 2011, the designer was fascinated by Alberto's three-dimensional sculptural aesthetic, which he turned into the garment's structure.

For the Ann Demeulemeester Spring/Summer 2016 collection, designer Sebastien Meunier directly named Alberto's sculptural silhouette as an inspiration, using leather cuts to extend the imagery of the human body's slender lines and then creating an elegant, feminine look through the tulle and body-hugging silhouettes.

For Chanel Spring/Summer 2017 Haute Couture, Alberto Giacometti's sculpture 'Spoon Woman' (1926) was the primary source of inspiration. Inspired by the African 'Dan culture', in which the vessel is the equivalent of a woman's womb, the sculpture looks like a giant spoon from afar but abstractly depicts the curves of a woman.

In fact, the influence of the spoon-shaped silhouette can be seen in many of Lagerfeld's previous couture pieces. Skirts were belted high and tight to accentuate the curve of the hips, while some robes were considerably off the body. For the most part, the torso and shoulders have been fitted or somewhat constricted; the tweed jacket, in particular, mimics the square line of Alberto's bust, a classic feminine style with a delicate feminine beauty interspersed with Power.

Text by Makoto. Li

Go through your wardrobe, and there's always that one frilly garment. Practical and poetic, Issey Miyake's work became a cornerstone of contemporary clothing, shaking up the foundations of Parisian salons in the 1980s with bold proportions and experimental textiles while enriching everyday wardrobes with artful cuts and signature ruffles. Issey Miyake has spent the last 50 years reinforcing his design themes: textures, shapes, fabrics, proportions and techniques. He blends these themes with a balance of his Eastern and Western heritage. Issey Miyake often refers to his Western experience but never forgets his Eastern roots, creating a different world for his clothes. Although he officially retired from fashion in 1997, he continues to oversee the creative direction of all his collections. He has created a textile innovation lab focused on sustainability, launching collections such as Issey Miyake, Issey Miyake Fête, Pleats Please and the accessories branch Bao Bao.

'Twist’ by Issey Miyake, 1992.

Issey Miyake: AW1985 Collection.

‘Pleats Please Issey Miyake’ Travel Through Africa. AW1997.

Born in Hiroshima on 22 April 1938, Kazunaru Miyake (also pronounced Issey in Japanese writing, meaning a life) initially wanted to be an athlete or a dancer, which perhaps explains his emphasis on flexible sports. However, his sister worked for a fashion magazine, which eventually inspired him to change. He later studied graphic design at Tama Art University in Tokyo and, after graduating in 1964, entered a fashion competition at the Bunka Fashion Institute. Still, his pioneering patternmaking and sewing skills did not win Miyake an award. Shortly afterwards, he joined the Haute Couture Guild in Paris and became an apprentice to Guy Laroche and Hubert de Givenchy, working at a rate of 50 to 100 sketches daily. After a short stay in New York, he met artists such as Christo and Robert Rauschenberg, and in 1970, on his return to Tokyo, he founded the Issey Miyake Design Studio.

Issey Miyake: Poster for SS1995 Collection MINARET, via Weekly Asahigraph.

In 1973, Issey Miyake moved his fashion shows to Paris, where he continues to present his collections twice a year. "East meets West" was his definition of this transcontinental approach, fascinated by the richness and practicality of Japanese craftsmanship, Western youth culture and the glamour of European haute couture (in particular, he drew inspiration from French fashion designers Madeleine Vionnet and Madame Grés, who was known for her own frilly clothes). In 1978, Issey Miyake released a book entitled East meets West - the only retrospective of a living designer at the time - introduced by American Vogue editor Diana Vreeland. She wrote: "Paris has a soft spot for people who are productive, have good taste and give their best from the heart. Miyake is most welcome in Paris."

Issey Miyake; tube dress (ss1984).

Issey Miyake: Abura-gami Coat, SS1984.

Issey Miyake: Wire Mannequins for the Issey Miyake A-UN Exhibition, 1988.

Looking back on Miyake's formative years, he had good reason to feel pain and anger. When the atomic bomb fell, he was a seven-year-old boy riding his bicycle in Hiroshima. Such experiences left deep invisible scars on his upbringing, such as his mother's death from radiation three years later and his own replacement of bone marrow disease at the age of 10 due to radiation. But unlike other designers who, amid trauma, choose self-anaesthesia, suicide or the narcissistic need to crave unlimited attention (or all three in one), Miyake chooses to drown out the pain with joy. This pleasure is translated into waves of clothing that swell and shrink with a seemingly endless fascination and entertainment, and ...... also comfortable, as anyone who has worn his Pleats Please collection will know.

Issey Miyake: Dancer from the Frankfurt Ballet in Pleats, 1991.

Like Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake was a leading figure on the Japanese design scene and struggled to gain a foothold in the 1980s. During this period, Issey Miyake began experimenting with 'pleats'. The fabric's ability to hold a crease, perfect for dancers and the 300 pieces Miyake sent to the Frankfurt Ballet inspired him to develop the Pleats Please collection in 1999. 10 years later, Miyake launched his menswear line Homme Plissé, which united performers, gallerists, musicians and fashionistas in a group that sought waist elasticity, comfort and craftsmanship. Today, the process of making these Seihin ruffles can still be witnessed at the Homme Plissé flagship shop in Minami-Aoyama, Japan.

Intelligence, humanism and an obsession with technology

In a 2008 interview, Issey Miyake said, "I gravitate towards the field of clothing design, partly because it is a modern and optimistic form of creation. And I prefer to think about things that can be created, rather than destroyed, that can bring beauty and joy." It's a design ethos seen in both black turtlenecks (as Steve Jobs' uniform) and in the flying saucer dresses and minimalist cloud-like columns of the '90s and '00s. In 2016, Issey Miyake told The Guardian: "We call the people who make the clothes costume designers - -they develop new clothing items; but actually, design and make things that work in real life."Issey Miyake does not consider himself a fashion designer. Instead, he is influenced by many disciplines, including architecture, the cross-fertilisation of cultures, and modern art and environmental issues. His proven creative output is dedicated to "making things, products that people like and can wear freely". It is a relatively simple slogan for someone who is technically original, experimental and soulful.

Tattoo collection, Issey Miyake, 1970, photographed by Kishin Shinoyama, AMICA 1970.

Rather than following the flamboyant and fleeting trends of seasonal fashions, Issey Miyake's garments habitually explore the relationship between a piece of cloth and the body, and the resulting space, utilising both traditional and avant-garde methods of craftsmanship in the process. Above all, his garments often raise critical questions about pressing issues - from moral awareness to hedonism and ethnic diversity. Take, for example, the 'Tattoo' flesh-coloured jumpsuit from spring/summer 1971, which is heavily printed and was designed by Issey Miyake after he founded his eponymous label [Miyake Design Studio (MDS)] in Tokyo in 1970 as a physical expression of freedom, by presenting a free It is an expression of the free body, by giving the 'second skin' of space, placing the importance on the wearer rather than the garment itself.

Scandinavian Wool Jacket by Issey Miyake, 1995.

Miyake works in the traditional Japanese way of "making things" while creating clothes from his inspiration. Whenever I see his work, I am always surprised. Why? Because his work is based on the philosophy of "everyday life". In fact, this drive to provide wearable solutions for modern life emphasises that the free form of the body is made up of very few seams. As he recalls, after witnessing the violent May Revolution protests in Paris in the late 1960s, "I was determined not to make clothes for a limited group of rich people, but to make clothes like jeans and T-shirts that everyone could have, that could be easily washed and worn. "

Issey Miyake: Pleats Please in China (Picture by Yuriko Takagi).

PLEATS PLEASE from the exuberant finale of the ISSEY MIYAKE Spring/Summer 1994 collection show in Paris (Picture by Philippe Brazil).

Issey Miyake: Pleats Please (Picture by Francis Giacobetti).

This motive is best expressed in the PLEATS PLEASE ISSEY MIYAKE. Launched in 1993, the collection is made entirely from heat-treated pleated polyester fabric, cut without thread, scissors or needles, but by a pioneering "hot machine". Pleating is one of the oldest methods of making garments that adapt to the body, as you know. Issey Miyake has created a modern metamorphosis of the pleat, making it both aesthetically pleasing and comfortable and practical (not to mention easy to care for). This iconic use of wrinkles and the abstraction of simple silhouettes have become an essential expression of Issey Miyake's design philosophy, a rare design concept in today's fashion world.

Design as discovery

Experimentation is a crucial principle of Issey Miyake's aesthetic, achieved through a stimulating blend of ancient and pioneering techniques. For example, for the Spring/Summer 1981 piece 'Rattan Body', Issey Miyake invited Japanese artisan Shochikudo Kosuge to develop a surprisingly hard-wearing structure crafted from rattan and bamboo. Not only did this demonstrate a harmonious dialogue between the traditions of Eastern artisans and contemporary Western fashion, but it was also the first garment ever to appear on the cover of the contemporary art publication Artforum.

Coat of Abura Gami by Issey Miyake, 1984.

Issey Miyake's signature is as varied as it is clear: he has used nylon thread and silicone, as well as Aburagami (oil-impregnated paper for parasols) and Sashiko (processed cotton). His avant-garde clothes often proved impractical for everyday wear. They were impossible to wear without instructions, but on the other hand, he delighted the fashion world with "Pleats Please", which came from his chic answer to jeans and T-shirts.

Similarly, A-POC (short for A Piece Of Cloth) is based on Issey Miyake's credo of making designs from just one piece of cloth to wrap the body. It all started in 1997 with the Just Before collection, where garments were made from 100-metre-long tubes of fabric into which the shapes and patterns of the designs had been woven, and the raw materials were fed into computer-programmed industrial weaving machines to produce a series of continuously connected tubular knitted dresses or shirts. Each garment can be cut out in various ways, allowing the user to mould the garment to their own whims. As Issey Miyake says, "The wearer still has a say in the design. A-POC is like a baguette - you buy it entirely and cut it into the shape you want. I try to experiment and make fundamental changes to the system of making clothes. Think about it. A thread goes into a machine using the latest computer technology to generate the complete garment and removes the need to cut and sew fabric normally required." It's an operation that has fundamentally turned the traditional way of thinking about garment manufacturing on its head and continues to develop even more possibilities. Furthermore, being a technical feat, A-POC virtually eliminates fabric waste throughout the process and aptly demonstrates Issey Miyake's focus on eco-consciousness and sustainability.

The appeal of collaboration

Creative alliances with different artists have proved invaluable to Issey Miyake, resulting in some of the most exciting pieces of his career. The bold autumn/winter 1976 'Paradise' shirt featured specially designed artwork by the famous painter Tadanori Yokoo. Meanwhile, the pleating mentioned above, which played a starring role in the previous exhibition, brought to life a modern poster of the late graphic designer Ikko Tanaka in the form of a kimono-style coat. Even the mannequins on display, made of latticed cardboard and transparent fibreglass with several textured coverings, were created in particular association with Tokujin Yoshioka.

Issey Miyake design by Irving Penn, 1990.

However, the most popular creative conversation at Miyake's previous exhibitions was a large video installation showing iconic fashion shoots by Issey Miyake and the late photographer Irving Penn. Issey Miyake first met Penn in 1983 when the influential photographer was assigned to shoot several of his mainline looks for a fashion story for American Vogue magazine, and Penn's unique perspective gave Issey Miyake a fresh air on his own designs, which led to him being asked to photograph his ready-to-wear collection for the next 13 years. Issey Miyake once explained their union, "I was looking for someone who could look at my clothes, listen to my voice, and answer me through his creations. Through his eyes, Penn reinterpreted the clothes, gave them a new vibe and showed them to me from a new perspective."

Clearly, Issey Miyake's commercial success has never shaken the design roots of this traditional brand. His groundbreaking pleated collection, first launched in 1989, remains a fashion must-have in every woman's and man's wardrobe in every season of the 21st century. An extreme fascination with industrial processes and manufacturing has thoroughly guided Miyake's fascination with futurism - the way each fabric and material is laid on the body and stacked on top of each other is intentional and purposeful, which explains why Issey Miyake is a pioneer of modern fashion. His curiosity is never satisfied.

Text by Makoto. Li

The philosophy of minimalism may seem simple, but since Bauhaus, it has been the challenge of countless designers and artists to find the balance before it collapses. The Minimal Art movement, which emerged in the US in the 1960s, abandoned even the notion of ornamentation and curves in the first 50 years of the 20th century, while the 1990s saw a wave of minimalist fashion, with basic black and white pieces, taking the hassle out of matching. Let's take a look below.

Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow，1929.

From Picasso and Georges Braque, who turned the depth of field into a flat surface, to Piet Cornelies Mondrian and the Dutch stylistic movement (De Stijl, also known as Neoplasticism), who reduced design to three primary colours, black, white and grey and vertical horizontality, to Suprematism, who used basic geometric shapes to convey the artist's idea of light, simplicity has been the beauty of the art.

Christie's Richard Hamilton (1922-2011) | Putting on de Stijl.

But no matter how simplified the forms are, artworks of the past and present have more or less 'ideas to be conveyed' or 'hidden metaphors'. What makes the minimalist art of the 1960s different is the blunt statement of the artist - "we have nothing to say"- and not only the surface decoration but also the artist's emotions and even the traces of his creation are entirely stripped away.

"There isn't anything to look at", said Donald Judd, the icon of minimalism - a statement that says that minimalism does not rely on illusory concepts but only appreciates the aesthetics of material purity.

Culture Trip History of a Painting: 'The Black Square' by Malevich.

'Pure Red Colour, Pure Yellow Colour, Pure Blue Colour' (1921) by Alexander Rodchenko.

Based on Marxist materialism, Constructivist artists such as Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko were engineers of design structures, abandoning all nebulous concepts of art to make art a servant of society. They wanted to make art a public servant of humanity. However, the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union brought artistic exchanges between the two countries to a standstill, so New York's 1960s Minimalism reflected advanced material civilisation and manufacturing technology.

Frank Stella. The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, II. 1959.

In 1959, painter Frank Stella pioneered the concept of 'painters as workers and engineers' in the United States; using a paintbrush and glazes, the artist regularly lined the canvas with black and white lines. He decided to abandon the national imagery and work with simple lines.

MoMA Frank Stella. Arbeit Macht Frei from Black Series I. 1967.

MoMA Frank Stella. Die Fahne Hoch!

Although the paintings still seem slightly inadequate in the light of later minimalist art - the irregular shaking of the artist's fingers still reveals signs of artificiality, and the titles, such as the fascist slogan 'Die Fahne Hoch' or 'Arbeit Macht Frei', are inevitably too rich in connotation - the hard, cold visual style is a far cry from the previous Abstract Expressionism, led by the artist Jackson Pollock, who had been spilling paint with abandon. However, the rugged, cold visual style was a far cry from the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock, a painter. He had previously been known to spill paint with abandon and attracted the attention of the press and the art world. Later, Frank Stella turned to aluminium and copper bars as a medium to give the images a more industrial feel. In the 1970s, he introduced a series of 'Shaped Canvas', which twisted the canvas out of the two-dimensional world and reminded the viewer that 'a blank canvas is also a tangible entity'.

Donald Judd. Untitled. 1973.

Donald Judd. Untitled. 1986.

Donald Judd, a leading minimalist, first brought minimalist art into the three-dimensional realm in the early 1960s. Having started out as an expressionist painter, Donald Judd soon grew tired of the 'false' illusion of three dimensions on a flat surface; after a brief experiment with relief, he turned to industrial materials - aluminium, steel, polymer sheets and Plexiglas - to create basic geometric shapes, arranged at regular intervals to emphasise a logical, rational quality. In the mid-1960s, Donald Judd began to commission professional factories to execute his works, leaving himself to plan and design, erasing any trace of the artist's creativity.

Although the works are primarily three-dimensional, Donald Judd does not regard them as 'sculptures' but rather as 'specific objects', which are not sculpted but finished by standard industrial procedures - moulding, cutting, welding, polishing, etc. Donald Judd also believes that work must encompass the space around it and has said: 'Just as the length of a metre has a benchmark of platinum, smelting and casting, so modern art must be a model for a specific time and place. The size of a metre has a bar in platinum and smithing, so contemporary art must be a model for a particular place and time.

To implement his theories, he bought a five-storey flat in 1968 so that his work could interact with the environment in a fixed location, setting the stage for the subsequent boom in Installation Art and Site Specific Art. Judd bought 340 acres of land in the desert of Marfa, Texas, and turned a disused US Army bunker into a studio and exhibition space, which he named the Chitani Foundation. Since then, Donald Judd has purchased over 60,000 acres of wilderness around Marfa, inviting minimalist artists to work with him and leaving behind 15 concrete works and over 100 aluminium pieces.

Dan Flavin Art Institute, Bridgehampton, NY.

Dan Flavin: Constructed Light.

In the 1960s, artists' interpretations of 'minimalism' became increasingly sophisticated, with even the material itself becoming the object of diminution. For example, Dan Flavin's 1963 masterpiece The Diagonal, with its fluorescent tubes hung at a 45-degree angle, was the first to bring art into the realm of light; later, in the Monument for V. Tatlin series, which pays homage to the masters of Constructivism with its architectural arrangement, and in the Alternating series, which experiments with different colour combinations of light, the main focus is always on light and light. In the subsequent Monument for V. Tatlin series, which pays homage to the masters of Constructivism with its architectural arrangement, and the Alternating series, which experiments with different colour combinations of light, the main focus is always on the interaction between light and the exhibition space, and the fluorescent tubes themselves are no longer critical.

The increasing simplification of forms soon made minimal art contradictory, and not only did the leading art critics of the time, Clement Greenberg and Barbara Rose (Rose married Frank Stella in 1961 and they divorced in 1969), write numerous articles analysing minimal art, but Donald Judd often published essays alongside his work This has transformed Minimal Art from a 'non-conceptual' art form to one that is surprisingly rich in concepts.

Sol LeWitt. Serial Project, I (ABCD). 1966.

To resolve this awkward situation, the artist Sol LeWitt, known for his ever-expanding matrix structures, proposed an answer to this unresolved problem in 1966 with his 'Sequence Project One', a 'Conceptual Art'. Abandoning the physical, Sol LeWitt reduced art to a series of instructions. He stated: "When the artist presents art in abstract form, all the planning and decisions are made beforehand, the actual production is optional, and the idea becomes the art-making machine. The subject and the client are switched, and the material becomes the object of simplification.

'Untitled', Robert Morris, 1967–8.

Robert Morris with Box for Standing, 1961.

In Box with the Sound of Its Own Making (1961), a wooden box was filled with a tape recorder that recorded the sound of sanding and tapping, allowing the viewer to experience the process of making the artwork at the same time while in the 1966-67 Felt series, Robert Morris used the soft drape of fabric to make the minimal less cold and rigid.

Primary Structure,1966.

From the mid-1960s onwards, Minimal Art became a niche avant-garde art and a sought-after object in significant galleries. After the 1966 'Primary Structure' exhibition, the Guggenheim Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum in New York staged minimalist art productions and invited artists to curate solo exhibitions. Although there are still a few scattered critics who are critical of Minimalism's 'anaemic' visual sensibility - Dan Flavin's fluorescent lights were once derided as 'the same as a shop window' - Minimalism has left an indelible mark on the history of art and design.

In fashion, minimalism didn't really take root until the 90s. From the Calvinists' all-black robes of the 16th century to the Dutch men's all-black fashion of the 17th century, to Dandy's ornate embroidery on tailoring in the 19th century, to the basic geometric designs of Pierre Cardin in the 1960s and 1970s, to the simple lines of André Courrèges and Yves Saint Laurent. The simplicity of the lines of André Courrèges and Yves Saint Laurent, if not a political rejection of courtly excesses, then a fanciful vision of a future sci-fi world.

The always iconic image of Linda Evangelista, Michaela Bercu and Kirsten Owen for COMME des GARÇONS. Photographed by Peter Lindbergh in 1988.

Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garçons, who invaded Paris in the 1980s, and Maison Martin Margiela, who deconstructed and stripped away the forms of clothing vocabulary in the 1990s, were similar to the minimalist manifesto of de-conceptualisation. Still, the meticulous attention to detail made the clothes visually different from the rigid coldness of minimalist art.

Guinevere van Seenus was photographed by Craig McDean for Jil Sander SS96 campaign.

Jil Sander SS 1989.

Kirsten Owen for Jil Sander, photographed by Jean Francois Lepage, Fall/Winter 1990.

Jil Sander 1993 FW.

The '90s saw the 'anti-fashion' movement, with the exaggerated silhouettes and elaborate accessories of the '80s out of the picture, replaced by simple pieces that returned to the garment itself, with as few cut lines as possible and a black-and-white palette that made the garment work for the wearer, rather than making the fashion suffer. Jil Sander, known as the 'Queen of Minimalism', was founded in 1968, but it was only then that the brand gained widespread attention in the fashion world. By pairing a perfectly tailored trouser suit with a slim, tailored blazer, Jil Sander allows women to retain the confidence and dignity of a power suit while cutting out the padded shoulders, tones and embellishments to reinvent the working woman. Designed from the perspective of both the garment and the wearer, Jil Sander's garments required little effort to match and were known at the time as 'onions', meaning that each layer was quite similar; the designer's almost paranoid demand for fabrics also revealed the minimalist's fervent belief in materiality itself.

The complex, cold, minimalist aesthetic seems to have been born in the German-Austrian blood. Growing up in not-so-fashionable Vienna, Helmut Lang has been pushing the boundaries of simplicity since its first show in Paris in 1986. Anna Wintour recalled the first Helmut Lang show she saw: "I was like, 'This is not the spirit of the 80s! But then the economic bubble burst a few years later, and it became clear that Helmut Lang was already on the prowl.

Helmut Lang 1999 FW.

Helmut lang autumn/winter 1999, backstage, by Juergen Teller.

Ahead of the 90s trend for office casual, Helmut Lang removed the symbols that separated formal and informal wear, creating a black and white fashion that was unconstrained by the occasion. "We were more than minimalist," said Michèle Montagne, who was in charge of Helmut Lang's PR at the time. "It was like a simplification contest; the fabrics weren't flashy, the silhouettes were stiff and rigid, the colours were minimal, and even the lines were the same for men and women. Helmut Lang, which always shows both men's and women's clothes, keeps the sound and light as simple as possible and calls its shows 'Séance de Travail': "Unlike Mugler or Montana, whose clothes are made for the stage, our clothes have nothing to do with the stage, they're just for wearing". says the designer.

Calvin Klein 1996 FW.

Calvin Klein 1996 SS.

Calvin Klein, the embodiment of minimalist fashion in the 90s, returned to simplicity from the perspective of American business, which was also an unexpected fit with minimalist art. From a practical and marketable point of view, Calvin Klein's items in the 90s were reduced to one-piece dresses without seams, basic suits, white shirts of different lengths, knitted vests and pullovers, etc. This was in line with the 90s consumer mentality of sport, leisure and comfort, eliminating the hassle of dressing up and down and emphasising the modern spirit of practicality. Calvin Klein's penchant for simplicity was not limited to clothing, and in 1995 the designer hired British minimalist architect John Pawson to design the company's new headquarters and shop.

Céline 2017 SS.

The decorative elements that had faded in the 90s came back in the 2000s, and the catwalk was once again dominated by lace prints. However, after the financial tsunami of 2008, minimalist fashion, the symbol of simplicity, gradually regained its lost ground. I saw how successful Old Céline was under Phoebe Philo during this time. Rick Owens designed a series of slightly more complex geometric shapes, while Hussein Chalayan harked back to the sharp suits of the 90s by changing the proportions of his blazers. But is this the strongest and most intelligent of all? You and I should already have the answer.

In a patriarchal society where you have to admit that women are disadvantaged in every way, in terms of power, work, etc., in many cases women are forced into a state of silence in the face of injustice, a silence that is not only spontaneous but also ignored, a kind of law of silence in a patriarchal society.

The mute woman is raped twice on the same day, once by a masked stranger in an alley, and again by a thief when she returns home, unable to make a sound, unable to scream, and finally killing the thief as he climaxes and discarding his body in pieces, leaving behind his pistol. From then on, the gun becomes her voice, from self-defence to murder, and the pistol that gives her voice reminds me of Sigourney Weaver, the sexually abused woman in Polanski’s “Death and the Maiden (1994)”. “If I didn’t have a gun in my hand, you wouldn’t even listen to me,” says Weaver to her husband. Clearly, it's a declaration that doesn't mean what it says.