This dress was designed by Yasumasa Morimura (born 1951) for Issey Miyake 'Pleats Please', 'Guest Artist' series No.1 Autumn/Winter 1996. Issey Miyake (born 1938) is one of the best known Japanese fashion designers. Miyake established the Miyake Design Studio in Tokyo in 1970 after serving an apprenticeship in Europe and New York. He is a leading international fashion designer whose garments are often inspired by aspects of Japanese tradition, culture and aesthetics.
From 1996 to 1998 Issey Miyake invited the four artists; Yasumasa Morimura, Nobuyoshi Araki, Tim Hawkinson and Cai Guo Qiang to collaborate with him in the creation of prints for his 'Pleats Please' line of clothing. Miyake's aim with the Guest Artist series was to bring to 'Pleats Please' 'freshness, a sense of discovery and renewal with continuity'.
Miyake chose artists who often use the body in their own works as a conceptual entity. The first was Yasumasa Morimura, who is known for cleverly constructed multimedia images in which he appropriates and transforms painted works which are the basis of historical models of Western art. He often inserts an image of himself into his work, taking on the role of the female subject of a famous painting. In 1996, he and Miyake created a series of five dresses on which Morimura's printed image of his own body is joined to that of an idealised, neo-classical beauty from the oil painting 'La source' by the French artist Jean-Auguste Ingres (1780-1867) in the collection of the Musče d'Orsay, Paris. A superimposed, inverted image of Morimura, his hands clasped as if in prayer and his head and torso draped in red net, fuses with Ingres' famous beauty. The resultant art work marries disparate images of male and female, the Orient and the West, the naked body with the clothed, in an interplay of historical art and contemporary art and fashion.
The piece forms part of The Gene Sherman Collection of Japanese fashion and accessories, with a focus on the work of Issey Miyake, Yohji Yanamoto, Comme des Garįons and the Japanese-Australian designer Akira Isogawa, formed from the mid 1980s to 2004. The Collection reflects Sherman's individual style as well as her appreciation of Japanese design. Dr Gene Sherman is Director of Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) in Paddington, Sydney. Its predecessor, Sherman Galleries, founded in 1986, was one of Australia's major commercial art galleries until its closure in 2007. As director of Sherman Galleries, Dr Sherman organised many exhibitions of contemporary art from Australia and the Asia-Pacific region and has played an important role connecting art and artists in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Dr Gene Sherman was a trustee of the Powerhouse Museum from 1995 to 2001 and special advisor to the Museum from 2002 to 2004. Born in South Africa, Sherman lives in Sydney with her husband Brian Sherman.
Ref. Mitchell, Louise, The Cutting Edge. Fashion from Japan, exh. cat., Powerhouse Publishing, Sydney, 2005
Designed by Yasumasa Morimura and Issey Miyake for Pleats Please Issey Miyake, "Pleats Please Issey Miyake Guest Artist Series No. 1', Autumn/Winter 1996. This dress is made from screenprinted and pleated polyester.
Referring to this garment Gene Sherman has said: "This is a very significant garment. It is the only garment in the entire collection amassed over 24 years that wasn't bought to wear. I didn't intend to wear it at all. I bought it for an exhibition that I curated myself - one of the few that I curated at Sherman Galleries. The show was called 'Forme Applique' [at Sherman galleries, Sydney] - an exhibition of applied arts but not exclusively fashion. For that exhibition there were two fashion works; a Miyake pleats please dress that he created in a limited edition - collaborating in a series with different artists." "From memory editions were 500, and the garments came in various forms - sleeveless, short and long sleeves - and in this case a dress." (Interview with Gene Sherman by Claire Roberts, 15 December 2008)
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