Issey Miyake Sloane Street store

The shop for Japanese designer Issey Miyake replaced an old shop for the same designer. The old shop resorted to the typical Japanese clichés of black stained timber and ‘artistic’ pebbles and driftwood. The intention with the design was to avoid such literal cultural references.

Issey Miyake clothes are in themselves a distillation of Japanese tradition, always starting from the material; the clothes are cut out in simple geometric forms. In Miyake’s design studio the material inspires form. The decision then was to adopt a similar approach to the design of the shop. The primary concern was to avoid the fashionable interior and make a good space which should be constructed from simple materials. To this end we looked at the clarity and simplicity of Japanese architecture but tried to avoid borrowing a recognisable language, abstract rather than pictoral, borrowing a spirit rather than a look. The materials are traditional – Portland stone, slate, timber and marble.