Issey Miyake AW15: A whirlwind of winter colour
Spring has arrived. We can already smell the sweet scent of summer BBQs on the air, the grass looks greener, and the light evenings glow golden as we head out to paint the town red. Yes, with the return of spring comes the reinstating of colour in both our lives and our wardrobes. You see for some reason during the winter season we feel the need to reflect the darker days in darker wardrobes; blacks, whites and greys dominate. A slightly lighter than average navy might creep in while we’re not looking. It is, then, a breath of fresh air to discover that come AW15/16, vibrant colours might turn this curious custom on its head.
If YCB favourite Issey Miyake’s AW15/16 collection is anything to go by, your brightest blouses and most dazzling dresses will still have a place once summer has come and gone this year. Much like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, this winter will see us stepping out of our traditional black and white world, and over the rainbow to discover, well, a rainbow of colour. The Colourscope collection is ‘a joyful world where a whirlwind of refracted light overflows into colours that spill into people’s hearts and emotions’.
Like looking through a kaleidoscope, Issey Miyake’s designs provide infinite colour, interwoven within a prismic geometry of shapes. They have a mystical allure. Turquoise intriguingly peeps out from behind fuchsia; changing tones of energetic blue create the illusion of movement and depth; like the Issey Miyake models, clashing hues of yellow and purple dance on full skirts, giving both the pieces and their wearers renewed life.
The wonder of Issey Miyake’s world is indeed that he’s encouraging vivacity and energy and life at a time that we usually equate with a lack of any of those things: trees are mere skeletons of their former selves and both animals and humans hibernate. There’s vitality not only in the colours but also in the shapes: high collars splay out dramatically around the neck, bold yet intricate folds pad out jackets, and pockets pull out hips to contrast cinched in waists.
This A/W, you most certainly will not be in black and white Kansas anymore.
