Issey Miyake Rustic Silk Skirt

The same rustic silk as the shirt it was made beside, and the same argument, but a skirt shows it better because a skirt is mostly fall. Ordinary silk falls in many small ripples. This one falls in a few large ones, because the dry finish gives the cloth enough weight and enough friction against itself to organise into deliberate folds and hold them. Ivory again, which keeps the attention on the shadow between folds rather than on colour. The result reads as drapery in the sculptural sense, the thing carved into marble rather than the thing hung in a window.

Why we selected it

A skirt that drapes in large folds instead of small ones changes how a whole outfit sits, and very little cloth will do it.

Miyake’s studio has spent fifty years asking what a material does rather than what it is called, and this skirt is that question asked of silk.

Materials and construction

100% silk, made in Japan, in ivory. The dry, textured finish is what supplies the weight in the fall.

Fit notes

Beautifully draped and generous through the body. It moves as a mass rather than as a surface, so it walks differently than a fluid skirt. Long enough that the hem is part of the silhouette.

Styling

Worn with the Rustic Silk Shirt it becomes a single ivory column, which is how the two were conceived. Against something dark and narrow on top, the folds get more contrast and read more sharply.

Care

Handle gently and keep it away from direct heat; the finish is doing structural work and heat flattens it. Our fabric care guide covers silk.

Related pieces

The Rustic Silk Shirt is the matched half, and the Wool Gabardine Pants are another natural fibre cut for the way the cloth falls. There is more on the house on the Issey Miyake designer page. Everything we carry from Issey Miyake is listed together.