The ISSEY MIYAKE brand A-POC has been a byword for boundary-pushing innovation for over 20 years — now the creative dialogue is set to deepen with this year’s launch of its latest brand: A-POC ABLE

ISSEY MIYAKE A-POC ABLE Kyoto store. Image by Masaya Yoshimura, Copist, copyright ISSEY MIYAKE INC.

The blouson hanging on a minimalist hanger in this Kyoto store is no ordinary item of clothing. Not only because it’s emblazoned with the signature digital numbers of Japanese artist Tatsuo Miyajima, but also because of its deep, dense shade of black, a colour engineered from rice husks.

This blouson sums up the boundary-pushing innovations of A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE, an experimental new brand intent on ‘weaving the future’ with a multilayered creative approach to making.

The brand — led by long-time ISSEY MIYAKE designer Yoshiyuki Miyamae and his engineering team — builds on the creative foundations of A-POC (A Piece of Cloth), celebrated since its debut in 1998 for the unique design system that empowers the wearer to determine the end product.

Now, more than two decades later, A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE aims to deepen the dialogue between creators and wearers while also pushing its technical innovations to new heights.

As Miyamae explains, ‘It’s been over 20 years since A-POC was created, but we could see that there was still so much more potential. We wanted to do more, so we decided that ABLE was a good word to represent this sense of potential, in terms of innovation and creativity.’

The new brand has already turned heads since launching in March. Its TYPE-I series includes a jacket, polo shirt and trousers crafted with thread containing the innovative new material Triporous, made from rice husks and developed by Sony Group Corporation.

The end result is clean-cut clothing in an unusually deep matt shade of black, which fades significantly less over time than conventional textiles. It’s also a sustainable use for the 100 million tonnes of rice husks that are discarded globally every year.

‘We spent two years researching what we could do with this material,’ Miyamae says. ‘What’s so special about mixing Triporous into the thread is the deep black it creates. Black textiles normally fade over time, but this is different. It’s a new creative potential for black.’

The more recently launched Type-II project comprises the unisex blouson jackets created in collaboration with Miyajima, who is famed for his digital number installations. The first blouson was made using signature Steam Stretch technology, creating a 3-dimensional texture, while the second was crafted from Triporous thread. Both have a scattering of white digital numbers from one to nine, while the number zero is hidden in black, reflecting ku, or ‘nothingness’, the Buddhist concept underpinning Miyajima’s artworks.

The clothing — fine-tuned through more than 200 prototypes — was launched at the brand’s minimalist new Kyoto flagship store, a 200-year-old machiya renovated by Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka.

The building has been scaled back to its original skeleton, its black timber shaved to reveal organic grains that contrast with expanses of white and a skylight. Walls are dissected by the minimalist curve of the hanging rails, crafted from integrally moulded recycled aluminium — the same technique Tokujin used to make the torch for the Tokyo Olympics, also neatly hinting at A-POC’s single material concept.

‘We wanted to launch this project in Kyoto, a city of tradition and innovation, in a new renovation of an old building,’ says Miyamae. ‘Meanwhile, these rice husks are being reborn as a new material, which has Buddhist echoes, as does Miyajima’s work. All these elements align conceptually with the brand.’

Text / Danielle Demetriou