Issey Miyake Sleek Pleats Shirt

Sleek Pleats is the treatment that gives pleated cloth a satin sheen and a silk-like hand instead of the matte texture pleating usually produces, and ivory is where you can actually see it. On a pale ground the light running along each pleat is the whole surface event, and the cloth appears to be lit from within rather than merely reflective. The shirt around it has been kept deliberately conventional: a point collar, a single button, short sleeves. That restraint is the right call. A shirt with a familiar collar and an unfamiliar surface is a considerably more interesting garment than one that is strange in both respects, because the ordinary parts give you something to measure the extraordinary part against.

A conventional shirt shape in an unconventional cloth is the easiest way to wear something this distinctive, and ivory is the colour that shows the sheen properly.

The precision of the pleating is the Issey Miyake signature, and Sleek Pleats is the version of it pushed toward light rather than texture.

100% polyester, made in Japan, in ivory. Sleek pleating with a satin sheen. Point collar, single button, short sleeves.

Short-sleeved with a point collar. Pleated cloth opens in wearing and holds more material than its flat state shows, so it is more generous in motion. The sheen makes the shape read cleanly.

Ivory and lustrous, it takes a dark bottom half well and reads as considerably more formal than a short-sleeved shirt normally does. Nothing textured should go over it.

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.

The Sleek Pleats Dress is the same treatment at full length, and the Physiotype Satin is another shirt built on a satin surface. Everything we carry from Issey Miyake is listed together.