Homme Plissé Issey Miyake presented its SS26 collection, Amid Impasto of Horizons, as Guest of Honor at Pitti Immagine Uomo 108. The brand chose Villa Medicea della Petraia in Florence as the setting, an architectural site with deep historical ties to the Medici family. This debut marked a significant step for the brand as it continues to expand its presence by exploring new spaces and audiences.
The collection draws from Italy’s everyday visual textures and cultural fragments. Through a process likened to painting, the design team collected colors from natural surroundings and Italian cities, turning those references into garments that rethink practical dressing. Their observations of daily life shaped the foundation of each design, using familiar forms to examine how clothing interacts with routine.
Andrea Faraguna and Michael Kleine directed the set and scenography. Their work responded to the calm architecture of the villa and its 16th-century gardens. A system of sprinklers animated the space, offering a quiet nod to the liveliness those gardens once held.
The collection includes several focused series. Painter’s Gear introduces functional workwear built with pockets designed to hold brushes, paints, and daily items. These garments offer flexibility when layered over shirts or jackets. Tailored Pleats expands on the brand’s existing two-button jacket, introducing new silhouettes such as a long collarless option and a double-breasted design. Each piece sharpens the cut and refines the lines for a more precise structure.
Palette and Paint Brush Close-Up showcase two surface treatments developed from studio materials. The former takes direct prints of the team’s paint-mixing palettes, while the latter captures the pigments left behind on brush tips. Together, they present wearable records of the design process. Carrier Carried transforms the garment bag into a design object. Its packable format folds into a shape that resembles the very bag used to store and carry clothes, creating garments that reference movement in form and function.
Footwear appears in the form of Cioccolato, a shoe design defined by its dual toe shape, part oblique, part chisel. The front resembles a chocolate bar, with a matte finish that adds structure to the overall silhouette.
With this debut at Pitti Uomo, the brand introduced its Open Studio project, an initiative that takes Homme Plissé Issey Miyake’s clothing to locations and events it has never visited before. Open Studio borrows its name from the tradition of artists inviting the public into their creative spaces. This concept guides the brand’s goal of making its design process visible while encouraging a more direct relationship with local and international audiences.
The first edition of Open Studio in Florence included not only the runway presentation but also an exhibition designed by Misawa Design Institute, Nippon Design Center. Working closely with the brand’s internal team, they developed a display that opened up the research and development behind the collection.
The exhibition explored how the brand transforms early concepts into clothing. The process starts with fieldwork, studying images, ideas, or moments, and then builds vocabularies from those findings that can be used in garments.
Inside and around the villa, curated installations featured materials developed during field visits in Florence and other cities across Italy. These included tools, textile experiments, and early forms used to shape the collection’s colors and structure. Alongside these, the exhibition introduced sculptural pieces that investigate the form and behavior of pleated fabric itself. These studies push beyond product design, emphasizing the visual qualities that emerge through folding, wrapping, and layering.
Misawa Design Institute described the experience as one of discovery. With no prior experience working in textiles, their team found freedom in the pleats’ adaptability. The resulting forms grew through direct engagement with the material, letting the fabric guide the outcome through movement and structure.
Through both presentation and exhibition, Homme Plissé Issey Miyake used Pitti Uomo 108 to reveal a full picture of its design process. The collection and its surrounding installations offer insight into how the brand continues to shape its identity.
