Issey Miyake’s shape-shifting A/W 2025 collection transforms the paper bag into something you can wear

‘Can anything be considered a garment, as long as it’s on the body?’ This was the question posed by Satoshi Kondo with his A/W 2025 collection for Issey Miyake, presented at Paris’ Le Carrousel du Louvre earlier this year.

Backdropped by a series of performers enacting artist Erwin Wurm’s ‘one-minute sculptures’ – developed by the Austrian artist in the 1980s, the continuing project sees Wurm encourage public participants to interact with everyday objects for 60 seconds, becoming an ephemeral ‘sculpture’ – the energetic show saw garments twisted in silhouette or context, from trompe l’oeil prints of knitwear which ran across twisted plissé gowns to heat-pressed fabrics used to create structural silhouettes evocative of paper dolls.

Shape shifter: Issey Miyake A/W 2025

Elsewhere, quotidien objects were transformed: a ‘paper bag’, printed with an imaginary exhibition titled ‘Abstract, Concrete, and In-Between’, became a dress, complete with a pair of handles on its side. ‘[It’s about] the freedom of wearing [clothing] in one’s own way and the exciting possibilities that are yet to be discovered within the garments,’ said Kondo.

It continues the evolution of the Japanese brand undertaken by the Kyoto-born designer and his studio, which draws on the namesake designer’s pioneering spirit without being trapped in the past. ‘Miyake was never guided by trends from the wider industry. There was always a story to tell, and that story was original. We’ve continued a creative process that doesn’t allow too much influence from the outside,’ Kondo told Wallpaper* earlier this year.

‘Miyake was tenacious and stubborn. It’s something that echoes with me, too – that tenacity, that perseverance. He continued until he found something really original. It’s a mindset. When you want a really beautiful flower, you don’t go to the florist, you go out into the forest.’ 

This article appears in the November 2025 Art Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands from, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 9 October. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today