Issey Miyake 132 5. Solid Top

132 5. is the most rigorously conceived thing the house has made. Each piece begins as a single flat geometric form, folded so that it lies completely flat, a polygon rather than a garment. Pick it up and it opens into three dimensions and becomes something to wear. The folding is worked out mathematically rather than draped, which is why the flat state is a clean geometric shape rather than an approximate bundle, and it means the garment has two genuinely distinct states rather than one state and a way of storing it. This top is the sleeveless expression: a layered collar built from the fold structure itself, and folds gathered at the waist where the geometry closes. Because every line in it is a fold rather than a seam, the surface is continuous, and the volume around the body is held by the geometry instead of by cutting and joining. In black, the folds read as edges and shadows, and the whole thing sits somewhere between a garment and a paper model.

This is the clearest statement of the idea that a garment can be engineered rather than cut, and it is one of the few pieces that is genuinely interesting flat on a table as well as on a body. The series is a landmark and this is a wearable entry into it.

132 5. came out of Issey Miyake's Reality Lab, the studio's research arm, and it is where the house's interest in a single piece of cloth met computational folding geometry.

100% polyester, made in Japan, in black. Sleeveless, with a layered collar and folds at the waist. The garment folds flat into a geometric form.

It holds its own volume rather than following the body, so read it as a shape. The folds gathered at the waist are where the silhouette is defined; above that it stands away. Sleeveless, with the collar structure sitting high.

It is an object, and it wants an outfit that acknowledges that. Something narrow beneath, nothing competing above. Black on black lets the fold lines carry the whole read.

Wash cool and keep heat away from it entirely. The folds are the garment, and heat is what would compromise them. Refold it along its own lines for storing rather than hanging it, since the flat state is how it was designed to be kept. Our fabric care guide covers polyester and technical cloth.

The 132 5. Solid Jacket is the outerwear piece from the same series. The Enclothe Cardigan is another garment whose structure comes from the material rather than from tailoring. Everything we carry from Issey Miyake is listed together.