Issey Miyake Quotations

To be honest, I think we should find first the possibility to make it. Research is first - if you're not interested, you never can find something. Many things happen from forgotten machines - ones that are no longer used.

The purpose - where I start - is the idea of use. It is not recycling, it's reuse.

Design is not for philosophy it's for life.

Of course there are many ways we can reuse something. We can dye it. We can cut it. We can change the buttons. Those are other ways to make it alive. But this is a new step to use anything - hats, socks, shirts. It's the first step in the process

Even when I work with computers, with high technology, I always try to put in the touch of the hand.

One of my assistants found this old German machine. It was originally used to make underwear. Like Chanel, who started with underwear fabric - jerseys - we used the machine that made underwear to make something else

From the beginning I thought about working with the body in movement, the space between the body and clothes. I wanted the clothes to move when people moved. The clothes are also for people to dance or laugh

I was always interested in making clothing that is worn by people in the real world.

Many people will say, well, clothes should be worn; but I think people can look at them in public, like seeing a film. I think museum exhibitions are very important

A great thing happening now in art is that artists are using the figure, the body, clothing, life.

I did not want to be labelled 'the designer who survived the atomic bomb,' and therefore I have always avoided questions about Hiroshima.

You see it in the many bouncing clothes that are not just pleats. To make them, two or three people twist them - twist, twist, twist the pleats, sometimes three or four persons twist together and put it all in the machine to cook it.

By the way, Marilyn Monroe was a size 14.

I started to work with cotton fabrics. I used cotton because it's easy to work with, to wash, to take care of, to wear if it's warm or cold. It's great. That was the start.

I've never been involved in any kind of political movement.

Most of us feel some kind of uncertainty, with the population increasing and resources decreasing. We have to face these issues.

I sent 200, 300 of the clothes that I had made, and the dancers chose what they liked.

Well, what I'm doing is really clothing. I'm not doing sculpture.

We can also cut by heat - heat punch. And we also can cut by cold - extreme cold. When you cut with heat, it makes a mark. With cold, no mark. It depends on the fabric.

Yellow, blue and black -- the glittery things, you know, shiny, showy things. I hated it before, this time I had to work on it, this kind of feeling.

I think we have to go to the next step. I want to communicate to the people, more than to show my work. I love design.

We are not a big company. We sell in New York, London, Paris, and a few other places. Eighty percent of the clothing is sold in Japan.

With your imagination you can wear (them) from the morning to night,

Another one is the Swatch. It's great. They brought another joy to having watches. What we can bring to people in clothing is joy - joy to have it.

Personal imagination is not for commercial reason but to make nice feeling.

I knew the Fondation Cartier. It's a very free, very fine place to have exhibitions. The plan was to show working as an exhibition.

I like to go to galleries. Other people give me ideas. If I see something I like, I ask. Then I give the artists the clothes, and I forget about it.

I had great teachers at school who taught me to use all my body to paint, to draw - you can draw with your hand, you can draw with a spatula.

I have worked with several dance companies.

I very much like dance and dancers.

I did not want to be labelled the designer who survived the atomic bomb, and therefore I have always avoided questions about Hiroshima.

The best fragrance is the scent of water, the fragrance of dew and rain falling on plants. Water is the essential element, a source of life and energy. A perfume that, like a garment, moves to suit the woman, her skin. A perfume that embraces a woman.

Work for money, design for love.

I have always been interested in conducting research that yielded new methods by which to make cloth, and in developing new materials that combine craftsmanship and new technology. But the most important thing for me is to show that, ultimately, technology is not the most important tool; it is our brains, our thoughts, our hands, our bodies, which express the most essential things.

Beauty is like a sunset: it goes as soon as you try to capture it. The beauty you like is precisely that which escapes you.