Issey Miyake’s Steam Stretch
We’ve seen fashion brands show off their behind-the-scenes action at runway shows on the Web.
We’ve seen fashion brands show off their behind-the-scenes action at runway shows on the Web. And we’ve watched online videos by luxury brands that document the makers and their studios. But now a designer label is taking this trend for transparency further, and turning it into a live performance.
For its FW 2012-13 fashion show in Paris last week, Japanese designer brand Issey Miyake decided to not just have a typical presentation of models wearing its latest collection. Instead, it also featured a theatrical display of production, with assistant designers making some of the clothes live on the runway.
At the start of the show, a team of women walked out to a series of fabrics that hung at different positions along the runway. Each assistant then picked up a steam iron and used it to slowly stretch the fabrics into new shapes in a technique called ‘stream stretch’. The result was a series of new clothing items that had been created live before the audience.
Transparency of production has been key for designers in the last couple of years, with young consumers wanting to understand more about where items are from, how they’re made as well as the story of the makers themselves. This ‘stream stretch’ show by Issey Miyake re-imagines this idea as a theatrical performance, and has created a new way to add spectacle to the fashion show presentation.
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