“The silhouettes undulate like waves. The lines overlap and blend together. Figure and background intertwine.” These sentences are not part of an artistic manifesto. They are the opening lines of the press release for the Spring-Summer 2027 collection by I.M Men—the men’s line of Issey Miyake. But in this context, the line between a press release and a philosophical essay becomes blurred. This is precisely where the brand has operated since its founding.
The title of the collection, “In Praise of Bamboo Shadows,” implicitly evokes Junichiro Tanizaki. His 1933 essay, *In Praise of Shadows*, has become a seminal text in Japanese aesthetic thought: in it, he theorized beauty as a phenomenon of filtered light, nuances, and ambiguity—in contrast to the brutality of Western electricity, which, he said, had driven shadows from Japanese interiors and, with them, something irreplaceable.
Shadow as a Raw Material
I.M. Men does not explicitly cite Tanizaki—he doesn’t need to. The collection speaks for itself. Bamboo is a plant of the shade: it thrives in the undergrowth, filters the light into shifting stripes, and casts patterns on the ground that change from moment to moment with the wind. A bamboo shadow is never the same twice. By its very nature, it is the opposite of a fixed archetype.
This is what the silhouettes in the collection convey. The layering of lines precisely evokes this interplay of light and shadow in the natural world. Figure and background intertwine: the garment does not delineate the body; rather, it engages in a dialogue with it. This represents a conception of men’s clothing that is the exact opposite of the one that has dominated fashion for decades—the suit as social armor, the jacket as a statement of authority, the collar as a clear boundary between the public and the private.
The Miyake Legacy and the Question of Transmission
Issey Miyake passed away in August 2022. The question of how to carry on his legacy—how to continue working in the spirit of a founder whose vision was so distinct, so deeply personal—is one of the most delicate challenges Japanese fashion has faced since the death of Yohji Yamamoto the previous year. The creative teams now at the helm of the Miyake houses have chosen, rather than imitating or idolizing, to continue asking questions. This is perhaps the truest reflection of the founder’s spirit.
“In Praise of Bamboo Shadows” is one such question. It asks: What is presence? What is absence? Where does the body begin and where does the clothing end? These are very ancient questions in philosophy and very recent ones in fashion. I.M Men poses them with a restraint that stands in stark contrast to the hubbub of fashion weeks.
A bamboo shadow on the ground. Someone walks by. The shadow shifts. The bamboo remains. Perhaps that, after all, is the luxury of tomorrow: not the permanence of the object, but the quality of the trace it leaves behind.
Cette publication est également disponible en :
