Issey Miyake Quotes

All of my work stems from the simplest of ideas that go back to the earliest civilizations: making clothing from one piece of cloth. It is my touchstone.

You see it in the many bouncing clothes that are not just pleats. To make them, two or three people twist them - twist, twist, twist the pleats, sometimes three or four persons twist together and put it all in the machine to cook it.

Then I learned how to do wraparounds and things like that. I had no experience.

Cut in dressmaking is like grammar in language. A good design should be like a well made sentence and it should only express one idea at a time.

No one ever taught me, and I never had formal classes in pattern making, so I was like, Okay, I'll just drape, and I'll sew as I pin it.

After working with clothes for so long, it seemed right to design them.

I can make 10 jackets of the same colour, same two pockets and same length, that will look like 10 completely different jackets when you put them on. It's about the way they are cut - it makes them look and feel completely different and move differently, and that's a never-ending study. People who wear my clothes will know exactly what I mean.

I had used the stretch materials for years to shape the inside of garments I made for private clients. Then I just started using them on their own.

I've always made my own clothes since I was a little girl. I was a terrible sewer, but I was always cutting and customising.

My job ranges from creating the initial overall theme of the season, to developing fabrics and sketching to sampling and fitting.

I think pattern makers are some of the most underrated, undervalued people in fashion. They're the people who are sometimes the geniuses in designing clothing.

I really want to get into designing my own business suit. I've designed a couple suits for myself that I've worn in the past, and I have a good idea of what I want and need to use.

I've learned a tremendous amount over the years by watching designers work. I now have a good understanding of what sits well on the body, not to mention the importance of a great cut and quality.

So many designers only sketch and leave pattern-making to others. Pattern-making is important so you know the structure. Then if someone tells me, 'I can't make a pattern from that sketch,' I can tell them, 'I will make it' and then they are quiet. If I can't make it, I don't design it.

I'm not a typical couturier, although I really respect them.

I'd like mostly stuff for design, because I like to design clothing.

With fashion, you really need to understand the aspects of construction. Not just design on an iPad.

If you take away print and embroidery, you have to challenge yourself a bit more on the cut.

Designing was always something I was interested in. I studied fashion design in high school as well as how to sew.

In my research, I learned that the way these twenties pieces are constructed, in one garment, can be very simple, and in others they can be very complicated. That's what made an elusive fit that we can't always get these days. Knowing this, I would like to share some of these secrets and use them in a collection.

I love designing dresses and tops.

I've got a real sense of three-dimensional geometry. I can look at a flat piece of fabric and know that if I put a slit in it and make some fabric travel around a square, then when you lift it up it will drape in a certain way, and I can feel how that will happen.

In Paris, we call the people who make clothing 'couturiers' - they develop new clothing items - but actually, the work of designing is to make something that works in real life.

I gravitated towards the field of clothing design, partly because it is a creative format that is modern and optimistic.

With imagination and personal creativity, people who sew can design the way they look to suit themselves.