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What Designers Can Learn From Issey Miyake

There are profound lessons for fashion designers around the world embedded in the life and work of the Japanese innovator, whose death was announced this week, writes Angelo Flaccavento.
Issey Miyake at the finale of his 1997 Autumn/Winter show in Paris.
There are profound lessons for fashion designers around the world embedded in the life and work of the Japanese innovator, whose death was announced this week, writes Angelo Flaccavento. (Getty Images)

Issey Miyake, whose death was announced this week, was a prolific inventor and his approach to fashion contains important lessons for designers around the world. There was his dedication to design as problem solving, his embrace of technology, his attention to deep human needs resulting in soulful and enduring products, and his aversion to saying too much about it all. Because real innovation is about hard work, not easy slogans.

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