A-POC, the futuristic design and manufacturing system created by Japanese design icon Issey Miyake, takes further step with its brand A-POC Able Issey Miyake led by Yoshiyuki Miyamae and his engineering team.

A new store, designed by Tokujin Yoshioka, has just opened in Kyoto. The shop is integrating the use of aluminum materials with the charm of an old townhouse, while connecting traditions to innovations.

“A futuristic space is born in a machiya-style house of Japan’s ancient capital. Inspired by the process in which the clothes of A-POC are born, the space is composed of fixtures that are formed of integrally molded aluminum. Like the manufacturing of Issey Miyake, which fuses technology with handcrafts, this space expresses the contrast of history and the future,” commented designer and architect Tokujin Yoshioka. Along with the opening of the standalone store, a new project, titled the TYPE-II Tatsuo Miyajima project, will launch in collaboration with contemporary artist, Tatsuo Miyajima. Miyajima, produces artwork that represents time and life through the depiction of the numbers 0 through 9, based on three concepts: “it keeps changing,” “it connects with everything,” and “it continues forever.” The new project by A-POC Able Issey Miyake proposes an experience of wearing art in daily life by creating clothing that use Miyajima’s numbers as a motif.

Two patterns of blousons will be released on this occasion:
The TYPE-II-001 series features a blouson that uses the Steam Stretch method to combine a pleated garment with Miyajima’s expression of digital numbers. The Steam Stretch technique shrinks cloth and creates a unique stretch material by applying hot steam.  Special heat-reactive threads are woven in the garment and then shrunken when the hot steam is applied. By only shrinking the intended parts of the piece of woven cloth, three-dimensional patterns and shapes are created and the garment is completed.

The TYPE-II-002 is a unisex blouson that uses Triporous, a new material made from rice husks, and features Miyajima’s digital numbers randomly on the garment. Garments created using Sony Group’s Triporous were previously released in A-POC Able’s TYPE-I project. "There are many designers who think about ‘what materials to use’ when designing, or ‘how’ to design. However, a designer who thinks about ‘why’ they need to make things is rare. Needless to say, designers at Issey Miyake create clothing while thinking about the ‘why’," said artist Tatsuo Miyajima.

A-POC Able Issey Miyake is a fairly new brand created in 2020, that wants to set out to “weave the future” and is part of A-POC, the design and manufacturing system created in 1998 by Issey Miyake, to revolutionize the process of clothes-making by introducing a new form of design in which the wearer participates. Engaging with a piece of cloth to bring about different ideas and diverse relationships with the wearers, the brand creates a variety of “ABLE’s” by engaging with different professions and industries. A-POC Able Issey Miyake’s genderless designs involve different technics developed by Issey Miyake such as Steam Stretch which creates a unique stretchable material by heating and shrinking fabrics with high-temperature steam. The brand also uses material that enables the wearer to create shapes freely. When you roll up the soft cuffs, the shape is retained.


[Please note: You can find out more about A-POC Able Issey Miyake in the current issue of The SPIN OFF]



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