21_21 DESIGN SIGHTRoppongi, Tokyo Midtown
Possibilities of A Piece of Cloth: TYPE-XVII JAXA Project by A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE
Gallery 3 show exploring body and clothing through a JAXA satellite image of Antarctica, which inspired A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE's jacquard-woven textiles for extreme environments including space.
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The pattern on these jeans is Antarctica. JAXA's climate satellite SHIKISAI photographed the ice sheet, about two kilometres thick, with cracks running across it and deep blue ocean showing through. A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE wove that image into denim on a jacquard loom, so the shading comes from how densely the threads are packed.
This small Gallery 3 show is the first result of a new agreement between JAXA and Issey Miyake: a space agency's first fashion project is, of all things, a pair of jeans. Around them, white textile prototypes made with a University of Tokyo lab that studies the geometry of origami cover the tables, and figures wear hooded white garments folded into ridges and hollows. You can study the ice in the weave up close, then buy it in Aoyama, Kyoto or Ginza, from ¥93,500.
Admission is free. It's open 10:00 to 19:00 (last entry 18:30), closed Tuesdays. For the story behind the project, A-POC SPACE in Aoyama runs a companion display, DIALOGUES.
Look for
The Antarctica jeans
Look for the cracks in the Antarctic ice sheet and the dark sea between them, rendered as denser and lighter areas of the jacquard weave rather than printed.
The textile prototypes
Experimental fabrics given new folded structures with an origami-geometry lab, made as a test of what clothing could be for space and the polar regions.
The white garment figures
Figures wear white garments with folded geometric surfaces over hoods, sleeves, torsos and legs, each built a different way, so every silhouette comes out different.
The cord-joined pieces
Look for identical fabric pieces tied together with cords into three-dimensional forms without any sewing, which can be untied and rebuilt into other shapes.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Nerding Out
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Image credits
8
- Masterpieces from the Itsuo Art Museum Collection: Buson, Go Shun, and the Art of TeaCourtesy of Suntory Museum of Art
- Masterpieces of the Renaissance from the Musée du LouvreCourtesy of The National Art Center, Tokyo
- Shojo Manga Infinity: Moto Hagio, Ryoko Yamagishi, and Waki Yamato(left) © Moto Hagio / Shogakukan (center) © Ryoko Yamagishi (right) © Waki Yamato / Kodansha
- 21_21 DESIGN SIGHTDaderot, CC0
- Suntory Museum of ArtWpcpey, CC BY-SA 4.0
- The National Art Center, TokyoAkonnchiroll / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Mori Art MuseumCharles Deluvio via Wikimedia Commons, CC0
- teamLab BorderlessSupanut Arunoprayote, CC BY 4.0