(Repost @design.emergency) We add our own, design sopranos voices to the universal, loving choir that bids farewell to Issey Miyake, whose death was announced this week. Here are four exquisite, perhaps lesser known examples of his design sublime. Miyake reveled in the elegance of process. In a memorable lecture at the New York Public Library 20+ years ago, models showed the before-and-after of a Pleats Please T-shirt, from giant and smooth to crimped at just-right human size. But Miyake also challenged other designers to find a use for the paper left over from the pleating process. That’s how Nendo’s Cabbage Chair was born, in 2007. With Dai Fujiwara, Miyake concocted in 1997 the A-POC (a piece of cloth) system, a computer-programmed industrial knitting machine producing a knit tube with a repeating pattern of woven seams that create a patchwork of shapes of one-size dresses, shirts, socks, gloves and hats. In specially appointed stores designed by Tokujin Yoshioka, customers could cut out their purchase with very little wasted material— and lots of fun. Yoshioka also designed in 1998 an unforgettable installation in which Miyake’s garments joyously danced in the air. The exhibition was at the Cartier Foundation in Paris, the city where Miyake was in 1973 the first foreigner to participate in fashion week’s official program. He asked to be called ‘clothing designer’ and not ‘styliste de mode.’ In 2007, Tadao Ando built for him 21_21 Design Sight, a uniquely original design museum in Tokyo Midtown where director Taku Satoh explored the design angle of subjects ranging from insects, DIY, or dairy colossus Meiji’s hold on Japanese culture. Miyake’s creativity in making and collaborating will be his eternal design legacy. Respect. Images: ‘Making Things’ exhibition (Fondation Cartier); Cabbage Chair (MoMA); A-POC Queen at MoMA in 2018 (Gail Worley); ‘Design Anatomy’ show on Meiji at 21_21 Design Sight, 2016 (Paola Antonelli); the museum (courtesy Go Tokyo) #designemergency #isseymiyake #pleatsplease #apoc #2121designsight #fondationcartier #tokujinyoshioka #tadaoando