Issey Miyake Men Label To Be Discontinued

Issey Miyake Men, the men’s wear line begun in 1976, is being discontinued. “As we continue to explore the future of men’s wear and with full engagement, we arrived at the decision to end Issey Miyake Men in its current format to explore and engage with something new and exciting,” Issey Miyake Inc. said in a statement obtained by WWD.

After starting out as part of the Issey Miyake women’s wear line, Issey Miyake Men became a brand in its own right in 1978. The label made its first appearance at Paris Fashion Week for the fall 1985 season and has been a mainstay of the men’s calendar, prized for joyful and energetic runway shows. The fall 2020 collection marks the last for Issey Miyake Men, which has been presenting in a Paris showroom, rather than on a catwalk, since June 2019.

Issey Miyake Men’s last runway collection, shown in January 2019, was a breezy, chic fall line created by Yusuke Takahashi. It included numerous billowing silhouettes, such as wide trousers and wafting jackets, plus popping colors. Takahashi, whose first collection for the brand came out for spring 2014, left Issey Miyake Men in February. Subsequently, the label has been designed by a team Issey Miyake himself put together and oversaw, while the company looked into new possibilities for men’s wear.

For the past four seasons, Homme Plissé Issey Miyake, the masculine counterpart to Pleats Please that was introduced in 2013, has held artistic presentations during Paris Men’s Fashion Week. Most recently, for spring 2021, the Plissé collection was shown in a video titled “Meet Your New Self” in which the brand made patently clear that its clothes are bright, fun and comfortable enough to execute contemporary dance moves or even practice basketball.

Homme Plissé Issey Miyake has wider distribution than Issey Miyake Men. The former counts 133 sales points, including 12 Issey Miyake shops, whereas the latter has 74 points of sale, of which 11 are Issey Miyake shops. Homme Plissé Issey Miyake has two freestanding stores, and Issey Miyake Men has one.

“As a company, we have always engaged ourselves in making and creating clothes, which is a process that comes hand-in-hand with the time we live in and the society that is progressing,” the Miyake company statement said. “We question what a piece of garment should be, and how it can better fit in our lifestyle, and from there we challenge ourselves to realize it. This approach has never changed since the very beginning.”