Issey Miyake A/W 2020 Paris Fashion Week Women's

Mood board: There was a cheery start to day seven of Paris Fashion Week, as Kanye West delivered a euphoric early morning Sunday Service, featuring 100 gospel singers, and Issey Miyake’s Satoshi Kondo delivered his sophomore collection as lead designer for the Japanese label. Miyake’s shows are always smile inducing, animated and energetic, and Kondo kicked off with two illustrators drawing two graphic figures on a huge sheet of paper at the head of the runway. These forms were then scissored, with three models striding through their empty silhouettes, sporting white tube dresses bordered with black outlines, inspired by the concept of drawing clothing and cutting it out. Elsewhere, beaming models (a runway rarity but common at Miyake) sported Kondo’s newly designed fabrics, from colour blocked asymmetric dresses, hand knitted to evoke the kneading of clay and illustrating the importance of hand craft, satin pyjamas and parachute shirt dresses in abstract prints, inspired by smudged forms and translucent origami like bodysuits, inspired by gently falling snow.
Best in show: A series of modular padded outerwear looks in striking shades of tangerine, sherbet yellow and silver were made using an extra fine nylon yarn, and featured trousers which could be handily unzipped into shorts and long coats which could be transformed into shorter jackets.
Finishing touches: Knee-high boots have bolstered many looks on the A/W 2020 runways (see Saint Laurent’s slick Allen Jones-centric latex versions or Halpern and Christian Louboutin’s tiger stripe styles with sculptural heels). Miyake offered a sportier, more day-to-day version, culminating in flat knee-high boots with chubby tractor soles.
Issey Miyake A/W 2020
Issey Miyake A/W 2020
Issey Miyake A/W 2020
Issey Miyake A/W 2020
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
-
Here’s what to order (and admire) at Carbone London
New York’s favourite, and buzziest, Italian restaurant arrives in the British capital, marking the brand’s first expansion into Europe
-
Griffin Frazen on conceiving the cinematic runway sets for New York label Khaite: ‘If people feel moved we’ve succeeded’
The architectural designer – who helped conceive the sets for ‘The Brutalist’ – collaborates with his wife Catherine Holstein on the scenography for her Khaite runway shows, the latest of which took place in NYFW this past weekend
-
How to travel meaningfully in an increasingly generic world
Lauren Ho explores the need for resonance, not reach, in the way we choose to make journeys of discovery
-
What the Wallpaper* editors are looking forward to at fashion week, from blockbuster debuts to rising stars
The Wallpaper* style team pick their highlights from the upcoming fashion month, a definitive season as the industry’s major players start their latest chapters, beginning in New York tomorrow
-
How Bureau Betak transformed the runway show: ‘Our currency is emotion and memory’
Pioneering production company Bureau Betak has masterminded some of the most inspiring runway sets of the last 30 years, dazzling both real-life guests and an ever-growing virtual global audience. Hugo Macdonald meets the people behind the magic
-
‘Never copy the past’: how Nicolas Di Felice is taking Courrèges into the future
At Courrèges, artistic director Nicolas Di Felice is marrying radical thinking, raving and reinterpreted minimalist codes to give the French fashion house a new dynamism. Hannah Tindle heads to Paris to meet the designer
-
Glenn Martens’ thrilling Maison Margiela debut was a balancing act between past, present and future
The Belgian designer made his debut for the house last night with a collection that looked towards medieval decoration for a new expression of opulence
-
Art meets perfume in cross-disciplinary fragrance series Nez 1+1
Talents from film and fragrance come together to create Ansongo, the latest scent resulting from a creative matchmaking project by perfume revue Nez
-
Haute Couture Week A/W 2025: what to expect
Five moments to look out for at Haute Couture Week A/W 2025 in Paris (starting Monday 7 July), from Glenn Martens’ debut for Maison Margiela to Demna’s Balenciaga swansong. Plus, ‘new beginnings’ from JW Anderson
-
The collections you might have missed this S/S 2026 menswear season
Between the headliners in Paris, Milan and Florence, a few off-schedule displays are deserving of honourable mention – from Martine Rose’s sexually-charged portrait of Kensington Market to Sander Lak’s appointment-only namesake debut
-
‘They gave me carte blanche to do what I want’: Paul Kooiker photographs the students of Gerrit Rietveld Academie for Acne Studios
Heralding the launch of a new permanent gallery from fashion label Acne Studios, the celebrated Dutch photographer’s new body of work praises the bravery of ‘people who choose to go to an art school at a time like this’