Issey Miyake Pleats Please Photon Madame-T Stole

The Madame-T is a rectangle of pleated cloth with a hole in the middle, and that hole is the whole invention. A conventional stole has exactly one function: it goes around the neck and stays there by friction. Cut an opening through the centre and the same rectangle can be threaded through itself to lock in place, worn as a loop, draped asymmetrically, or pulled over the head, and none of those require a knot or a pin. It is an extremely flexible garment made out of a very simple idea, which is the most satisfying kind. Photon is the name of this colourway, and yellow is the right choice for a piece named after light: the pleats catch and release it down every fold, so the colour has depth rather than sitting flat.

Sizing and dimensions

One size, as a stole is. The pleating means it compresses very small and opens very large, so how substantial it looks depends entirely on how much of it you open.

One cut through the middle of a rectangle turns a scarf into something with several genuinely different configurations. That is a lot of design in very little material.

The Madame-T is one of Issey Miyake's most enduring accessory ideas, and it belongs to the studio's long interest in garments that are finished by the wearer.

100% polyester, made in Japan, in yellow. Pleated, with an opening through the centre.

Yellow at this saturation is the only colour the outfit needs. Against black, grey, or ivory it does all the work. Worth spending a few minutes finding out which of its configurations suits you before settling on one.

The pleats are heat-set into the polyester and are permanent, so it washes without losing them. Wash at 30°C or below in a laundry net on a short cycle, or press gently by hand, and never tumble dry, iron, steam, or dry clean. Store it rolled along the direction of the pleats. Our fabric care guide covers polyester and technical cloth.

The Basic Madame-T Stole in black and the Thermal Foods Madame-T in pink are the same object in other colours and prints. Everything we carry from Issey Miyake is listed together.