Irving Penn on Issey Miyake

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Interviewed by the Japanese daily The Yomiuri Shimbun in 2015, he said: “What I wanted to make wasn’t clothes that were only for people with money. It was things like jeans and T-shirts, things that were familiar to lots of people, easy to wash and easy to use.” Masters of the Camera: Stieglitz, Steichen and Their Successors, organized by the American Federation of Arts, International Center of Photography, New York, November 14,1976–January 2, 1977. Traveled to: Winnipeg Art Gallery, May 6–June 18,1978. Holme, Bryan, Katharine Tweed, Jessica Daves, and Alexander Liberman. The World in Vogue. New York: Viking Press, 1963.

Penn, Irving. Close Encounters: Irving Penn: Portraits of Artists and Writers (exhibition catalogue). New York: The Morgan Library & Museum, 2008. 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 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. Prodger, Phillip. Face Time: A History of the Photographic Portrait. London: Thames & Hudson, 2021: 168, illustrated. Hood, Robert, E. "A Modern Master." Find A Career in Photography. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1959.Hambourg, Maria Morris and Irving Penn. Earthly Bodies: Irving Penn’s Nudes, 1949-50 (exhibition catalogue). Boston: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Little, Brown and Co., 2002. Salaway, Kate. "Shots of Style at the V & A." British Journal of Photography 132 (October 25, 1985): 198–99. Hall-Duncan, Nancy. The History of Fashion Photography. International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House. Rochester, 1979. And just like the abstract look of Miyake’s fashion lines, the models would strike a variety of abstract poses. Some even insist that it was Irving Penn’s work with Miyake that inspired Madonna’s 1990 song “Vogue”. Nihon Buyo

Mr. Miyake’s “Flying Saucer” dress, on display in 2020 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. Dolly Faibyshev for The New York Times Photography by Irving Penn; Courtesy Miyake Design Studio and the Irving Penn Foundation/Typography Ikko Tanaka Holborn, Mark, Midori Kitamura, Issey Miyake and Irving Penn. Irving Penn Regards the Work of Issey Miyake: Photographs 1975-1998 (exhibition catalogue). London: Jonathan Cape, 1999.I was living in the town of Fuchu, adjacent to Hiroshima. My house, where my mother was, was 2.3 kilometers away from the epicenter of the bomb blast. Irving Penn: Le Noir et Blanc légitimé, Galerie Thierry Marlat, Paris, November 3, 2011–January 12, 2012. One of Miyake’s most noted graphic design collaborators was the Japanese designer and art director Ikko Tanaka—known outside Japan for his famous logotypes, including the one for Muji. The two met in the 1960s and shared an enduring friendship until Tanaka’s death in 2002. Among the 640 books that Tanaka worked on was the groundbreaking volume Issey Miyake: East Meets West (Heibonsha Limited, 1978); the art director also created all the advertising for Pleats Please between 1994 and 1997. In 2016, Miyake paid tribute to his friend with the series Ikko Tanaka Issey Miyake, converting two of Tanaka’s most famous works into motifs—the 1981 poster Nihon Buyo, created for a performance of Japanese dance at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the 1995 poster The 200th Anniversary of Sharaku. Transferred onto coats and put through a pleating machine (above), Tanaka’s masterpieces—two-dimensional both in their original format and in their approach to form—acquire volume and dynamism when worn. — A.R. Penn, Irving. Irving Penn: Photographs in Platinum Metals—Images 1947-1975. London: Marlborough Gallery, 1981. Before any collection makes it to Paris, everything is presented to Miyake himself at the studio’s somi (“general see”). Changes are sometimes made, but Miyake’s guiding hand is gentle and generous. “I always tell them that they don’t need me,” he says. “But I have to make sure that there is a concept with universal appeal. The work isn’t complete unless someone wears it. Also, I consider the somi a process of studying and learning – for myself. It’s crucial that the designers are establishing their own ideas.”

There are superficial similarities between Noguchi’s iconic lanterns and Miyake’s IN-EI lights, but Miyake’s work – created applying the same mathematical theories of 3D design as in his 132 5. collection – has a significantly different structure. Nolde, Philippe. "Irving Penn: le photographe dessinateur." Conaissance des Arts 564 (September 1999): 72–77. 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.Penn, Irving. Irving Penn: Photographs (exhibition catalogue). New York: Alexander Iolas Gallery, 1960. XX1c., a term used in archaeology and museum studies to refer to the 21st century, was the basis for the XXIc.—XXIst Century Man exhibition in 2008 at 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo, which explored the possibilities of bodies, lives, design, and manufacturing in an age facing serious environmental issues and the depletion of resources. Curated by Issey Miyake, it asked the questions “Where are we headed in this new century?, What are our hopes?,” and “How do we build our future?” Miyake, alongside creative directors Taku Satoh and Naoto Fukasawa, featured the work of 11 architects, designers, and artists, including Isamu Noguchi, Ron Arad, Nendo, Dai Fujiwara + Issey Miyake Creative Room, and Yazou Hokama, plus his own, to explore the environment and new technologies. Nendo, for example, presented a chair made from a wastepaper by-product, and Dai Fujiwara created an installation using Dyson vacuum cleaners. — P.M. What Penn's camera leaves out is always as important as what it includes. From omitting the fashion model from an early shoot (see his first Vogue cover, 1943) to eliminating the environment for the figure, his photographs use absence to stimulate appetite.