« EXPOSITION en COURS » Number 1 / ISSEY MIYAKE : A wardrobe revolution for contemporary fashion

The Shiro Kuramata / Azzedine Alaïa exhibition, currently on show at the Azzedine Alaïa Foundation, focuses on the collaboration between Issey Miyake and the Japanese designer himself. From the 1980s onwards, Kuramata created around 200 of the designer's boutiques in a clear form of community of spirit.

A selection of  significant pieces in Miyake's pleated art dialogue with a pure, transparent cabinet by Kuramata.

Miyake's clothes paved the way for the history of contemporary fashion.

From 1988, Issey Miyake innovated by introducing a new pleated fabric, first for the dancers of choreographer William Forsythe, for whom he made the costumes. Pleats Please, officially born in 1993, is a polyester clothing label with the thermoplastic qualities and capacity of a fibre moulded by heat and pressure. It retains its original shape despite being washed. Cut and sewn, the garments are then, in contrast to old-fashioned methods, draped at the final stage after being shaped and assembled. Lightweight and functional, Issey Miyake's Pleats Please garments allow great freedom of movement and magnify the body through formidable, colourful textile abstractions.

« EXPOSITION en COURS » is an exhibition program located on the 1st floor of the Azzedine Alaïa Foundation, close to the couturier’s studio.

A series of short thematic, theoretical and historical exhibitions in a constant process of renewal. Heritage and lessons promote the presentation of the historical collections of which Azzedine Alaïa was the passionate curator.

« EXPOSITION en COURS » is based on the garments and costumes archives skilfully collected by Azzedine Alaïa himself, as well as on the many graphic documents that he preserved. Magazines, books, letters, photographs and drawings form a corpus of historical information. « EXPOSITION en COURS » looks back at the significant, distinctive and unique phenomena that have marked the history of contemporary fashion.