Best streamlining: Wallpaper* Design Awards 2021
Issey Miyake's ‘Unpack the Compact’ S/S21 collection takes the gong for an offering that can fit into just one single shipping box

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Before the Covid-19 pandemic put a pause on travel, seasonal Fashion Weeks saw swathes of editors and crates of clothing freewheel across the globe. This mass movement was a concern for Issey Miyake’s designer Satoshi Kondo, who shipped numerous boxes of clothing from Japan to Paris for the label’s A/W20 womenswear show in February last year. Serious about streamlining, Kondo has now succeeded in packing the entire S/S21 collection into one wooden shipping box.
Miyake’s clothing is famed for its functionality. Its lightweight Pleats Please pieces can be scrunched into suitcases and emerge crease-free, and dry after washing in a matter of minutes. For S/S21, Kondo has created silhouettes that can be folded, stacked, tied and rolled, ensuring they’ll need little space not just in a shipping box, but your chest of drawers too. The collection includes zigzag-pattern knitted garments that stretch out like a sponge, lightweight water- and-wrinkle-repellent coats that can be folded and transformed into bags, biker jackets that can be zipped up into smaller 3D forms, and vests that mould like shells around the body.
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Kondo was also intent on bringing a new sense of joy to the activity of unpacking, where the construction of compact clothing brings design-focused delight. Boxed or worn, his cleverly constructed clothing is certainly a delight, and proof that good things come in small packages.
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