Issey Miyake Hatching Pleats Dress

The hatching family reaches its plainest and best form here. Double pleating run in two crossed directions makes a single-coloured cloth read tonally, so the surface has depth and shifting shadow with no pattern and no second dye involved. Cut as a long-sleeved midi with a crewneck, the dress gives that surface the largest uninterrupted area in the family to work across, and almost nothing else to look at: no collar, no fastening, no detail competing with the cloth. It is the most restrained garment in the hatching group and the one where the technique is most completely the point. Long sleeves keep the column unbroken from shoulder to hem, which is what allows the tonal variation to be read as one continuous surface rather than as a set of panels.

Why we selected it

Of everything in the hatching family, the dress is where the double pleating has room to actually demonstrate itself. It is a single quiet garment that turns out to be doing something quite technical, which is the combination we look for.

The colour

Black is the harder of the two and the more rewarding. The tonal variation the hatching produces is subtle on a dark ground, so the dress reads plain at a distance and detailed close up, which is a quality worth having in a garment you wear often.

Fit notes

Midi length, crewneck, long sleeves. Pleated cloth carries considerably more material than the flat garment implies and opens as it is worn, so expect it to move more generously than it appears to at rest.

Styling

In black it takes anything over it, so it works as a base layer under a coat as easily as it works alone. A hard shoe against the softness of the pleating is the most interesting contrast.

Materials and construction

100% polyester, made in Japan, in black. Double pleated. A long-sleeved midi with a crewneck.

Care

The pleats are heat-set into the polyester and are permanent, so it washes without losing them. Miyake’s own instruction is to wash at 30°C or below in a laundry net on a short cycle, or press gently by hand, and never to tumble dry, iron, steam, or dry clean, since the pleats are not heat-resistant. Store it rolled along the direction of the pleats. Our fabric care guide covers polyester and technical cloth.

Related pieces

The same dress in Dark Brown is the sibling colourway. Then the Hatching Pleats Skirt, the Hatching Pleats Jacket, and the Hatching Bottoms. There is more on the house on the Issey Miyake designer page. Everything we carry from Issey Miyake is listed together.