1994
ISSEY
MIYAKE
“Flying Saucer” Dress
Spring/summer 1994
Issey Miyake, Japanese, born 1938
Pleated black synthetic taffeta
Courtesy Issey Miyake
1930
MARIANO
FORTUNY Y MADRAZO
“Delphos” Dress
Ca. 1930
Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, Spanish, 1871–1949
Pleated black silk charmeuse, black silk cord, and brown-and-white glass beads
Promised Gift of Sandy Schreier (L.2018.61.29a, c)
As the millennium approached, fashion fixated on the future, and designers explored technological developments in textile production and garment manufacture. In 1994 Issey Miyake launched his “Pleats Please” line, a range of clothes made with a unique pleating technique that entails constructing garments at two or three times their intended size and then precisely folding, ironing, and placing the sewn ensembles, sandwiched between paper, into a heat press. This dress is both vertically and horizontally pleated, creating the effect of an accordionlike series of discs that can be compressed or expanded. Both futuristic and timeless, the design exemplifies the playful role of fashion, a role that Miyake cherishes.
Miyake’s radical concept owes much to the work of Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, who in the early twentieth century developed a method of pleating textiles by hand. This dress is an exquisite example of the designer’s “Delphos,” named after and inspired by the Charioteer of Delphi, a classical bronze statue of a standing charioteer wearing a chiton. Echoing the chiton’s body-conforming drape, economy of construction, and columnar silhouette, the “Delphos” achieves Fortuny’s desired sense of timelessness.
Miyake’s radical concept owes much to the work of Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, who in the early twentieth century developed a method of pleating textiles by hand. This dress is an exquisite example of the designer’s “Delphos,” named after and inspired by the Charioteer of Delphi, a classical bronze statue of a standing charioteer wearing a chiton. Echoing the chiton’s body-conforming drape, economy of construction, and columnar silhouette, the “Delphos” achieves Fortuny’s desired sense of timelessness.