FRANCE: Dyson vacuums teams up with Japanese fashion label Issey Miyake and give Paris fashion an airy theme

Using innovative designs and industrial fabric, Miyake's spring-summer 2008 collection brought an airy theme to Paris fashion week. Vacuum maker James Dyson teamed up with Japanese fashion label Issey Miyake to present on Tuesday (October 2) a collection with a futuristic flavour and a refreshing idea. The show was entitled "The Wind", after the original idea behind the collection. Dai Fujiwara, Issey Miyake creative director, said he wanted to explore every nuance of the term wind and worked with the image of a huge cyclone, powered by Dyson technology. Models stepped out of a giant plastic yellow tube similar to those used in Dyson's distinctive bagless vacuum cleaners that use cyclone technology to suck up dirt. The collaboration between Britain's Dyson and Fujiwara was supposed to highlight their interest in clever designs. To make outfits from dissembled parts of Dyson vacuum cleaners, Fujiwara said he had to flatten all material first. ''We just take parts of, from the product. So after that, we made a pattern by, a flat pattern, because vacuums have a three dimensions, you know, shape and design. So we need, clothes, we need flat. After that, we combine the several parts of the pattern. So the hat comes from the same shape as the Dyson vacuumer,'' Fujiwara described. Dyson, who had been the chairman London Design Museum, was thrilled by the result. ''The vacuum cleaner collection which is extraordinary for me to see vacuum cleaner themes, vacuum cleaner bits appearing in clothes and the all shapes of the clothes. And the A-POC range is very interesting as well, so the three ranges. But they are very creative and inventive, using new materials in new ways and I think that's what it's so exciting about Issey Miyake and Dai Fujiwara, it's their, it's their inventiveness, creativity and going forward, breaking the boundaries and living on the edge a bit, not drawing from the past at all. It's all that that I find so fascinating,'' Dyson explained. A-POC stands for 'A¨Piece of Cloth', a concept introduced by Miyake in 1998. Using one piece of cloth to produce one piece of clothing, the design is left open for the consumers to adapt to its own needs. The A-POC technology and philosophy revolutionised the way Miyake produce its clothes and is now used to all lines produced by Miyake, Miyake website said. On the catwalk, some pieces were transformable with skirts becoming pants when changing buttons' positions and braiding becoming hair when blowing in a storm. The wind theme was declined through breeze, cyclone, sail and weather forecast or heaven's breath. A special section was entitled 'Wind from China', with a model wearing a dress with the portrait of a woman holding a peony, China's symbol flower. Some clothes were inspired by dark thunderous clouds or bird's wings in flight. Some clothes came to life when air circulated around the body. A skirt carried a "five-year guarantee" tag. Designed by Dyson, the ceiling of the tent was decorated with giant yellow pipes pumping out gusts of air.

ITN Source | October 8, 2007

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