Fashion, Food and Design Converge in Issey Miyake’s Latest Exhibition

Dossier

27 May

Preview

Cult favourite Issey Miyake presents a new multisensory exhibition, Savor Water, Embracing Water, across its Tokyo and Kyoto galleries. Sensory and abstract, the exhibition is designed by Teruhiro Yanagihara and explores how water connects food, clothing, shelter and more

Light, warm and with a hint of the sea. The invisible scent contained in a glass carafe is unexpected yet familiar, and a deep inhale confirms it’s kombu kelp, instantly sparking a memory of the dashi broth that underpins countless Japanese dishes.

This crafted olfactory expression of seaweed is among a constellation of creative ingredients that shape Issey Miyake’s innovative new exhibition in Japan, Savor Water, Embracing Water. Sensory and abstract, the multilayered exhibition explores how water is a common thread that connects food, clothing, shelter and almost every other element of existence.

The exhibition has its seed in Hyakumi Saisai, a book by culinary artist Fukiko Yokoyama with imagery by photographer Shigeru Akimoto, which delves into the fundamental ties between humans, water and food, all rooted in an intrinsic connection to nature. Spanning the Issey Miyake galleries in Tokyo and Kyoto, Savor Water, Embracing Water is a sensory journey that includes textiles, visceral food photography and subtle ingredient scents like kelp, butterbur and Japanese ginger.

The show comes to life via an impressive roster of creative talents: planned and supervised by Issey Miyake’s Natsumi Toyama, it includes vibrant photography by Akimoto, natural aromas by Awajishima-based Izumi Kan, a soundscape by Sound Couture and words by the late Issey Miyake himself, all woven together into an immersive spatial journey conceived by Teruhiro Yanagihara Studio.

‘Water is the source of all life,’ Toyama says. ‘Our bodies are mostly water and we’re born from the water-rich planet earth, inherently connected to the land.’ She adds that by choosing water as the exhibition’s theme — ‘the origin and essence of all things and the core of clothing, food and shelter’ — the aim is ‘to create a physical space that awakens bodily senses and evokes rich emotions.’

At Issey Miyake Ginza | Cube in Tokyo, the experience begins outside: the white facade is punctuated by vivid green imagery of butterbur and poetic abstractions of whispering bamboo groves and water flowing over river pebbles by writer Yuko Tanaka. Inside, the heart of the space is wrapped in a spiral of textile in softly gradated shades of black, an unfinished fabric called hogushi gasuri. Light passes through its loose weave, the fabric gently swaying like underwater seaweed. On a table are ceramics by Yasuo Tamaoki and nearby glass carafes contain scents inspired Sound Couture’s soundscape. The exhibition at Issey Miyake Kyoto | Kura is similarly intimate: a burst of textile enwraps a pink image of myoga, or Japanese ginger, its fresh, warm aroma captured in a glass container.

According to Yanagihara, the sensory ingredients of the exhibition (textiles, sound, scent, photography) were carefully composed in ‘orchestral harmony’, enabling visitors to intuitively ‘feel the taste of the space’. ‘I want to engage all five senses,’ he says, ‘feeling the movement and texture of the fabrics, the faint scents of kombu and fuki and the sounds that respond to these elements.’

For Yanagihara, the spatial journey is deeply embedded in the senses. ‘The idea emerged from the inability to actually taste water itself. I wanted to create an exhibition where the experience starts by sharpening senses other than taste and ultimately leads us to the sense of taste.’ His approach to spatial design, he says, is ‘focused on sensing the invisible through the five senses and enhancing the quality of space through that awareness.’

Circling back to the exhibition’s Issey Miyake roots, Toyama says, ‘Clothing and shelter wrap the body from the outside, while food wraps it from the inside. This act of wrapping and being wrapped nourishes and fulfils both body and spirit, creating spaces and moments filled with emotion. The interplay between wrapping and the resulting spaces brings joy, aligning with Issey Miyake's approach to design, which emphasises the space between the body and fabric and the joy of creation.’

Savor Water, Embracing Water runs at Issey Miyake Ginza | Cube until June 27 and Issey Miyake Kyoto | Kura until June 25.

Text by Danielle Demetriou
Images copyright Issey Miyake inc.