Medium: Pleated black polyester

Date: Spring 1995

Country: Japan

Credit: Gift of Nancy J. Murakami

Issey Miyake's most commerically sucessful textile, with pemanently-pressed pleats, is shown here in the Bouncing Dress. The dress is wide - tent style - with four staggered layers of horizontally pleated polyester and is suspended around the body so that it responds to movement by the wearer. Miyake has never feared color or patterns, both of which have history and significance in Japanese traditional attire. In this example, however, he has chosen solid black, with its connotations of power, elegance, formality, and death. The choice of black draws attention away from the garment itself and places greater emphasis on the piece in motion. The black Bouncing Dress, revolutionary in textile and design, serves, perhaps, as an elegy to the passing of western hegemony in fashion.

Object Number: 99.34.1