Japanese designer Issey Miyake, known for his pleated clothing style that never wrinkled and produced the signature black turtleneck sweater of Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Inc, has passed away.
Miyake, whose name became a byword for Japan’s economic and fashion prowess in the 1980s, died on Aug 5 of liver cancer, Kyodo news agency said. No further details were immediately available.
Where was Issey Miyake Born?
Miyake was born in Hiroshima and was seven years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on the city while sitting in a classroom.
Starting his fashion career in the late 1960s, working with couturiers such as Hubert de Givenchy and Guy Laroche, his name quickly became a synonym for Japan’s economic and fashion prowess in the 1980s.
His pleated designs were loved by celebrities such as Doja Cat, Celine Dion and Solange Knowles.
Meanwhile, he found fame after designing a uniform-esque wardrobe of black turtlenecks for Jobs. In his biography of Jobs, Walter Issacson quoted Jobs as saying, “I asked Issey to make me some of his black turtleneck sweaters that I liked, and he made me a hundred. I have enough for the rest of my life.’
When He Wrote in The New York Times
In 2009, writing in the New York Times as part of a campaign to get then-US President Barack Obama to visit the city, he said he did not want to be labelled as “the designer who survived” the bomb.
“When I close my eyes, I still see things no one should ever experience,” he wrote, adding that within three years, his mother died of radiation exposure.
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