This study focused on Issey Miyake’s 14 womenswear collections from spring 2018 to fall 2024. Reviews and reports on these collections and the designer were collected from the American Vogue and the Women’s Wear Daily websites using the keyword “Issey Miyake.” Drawing upon the dress criticism model, this study analyzed the form of Miyake’s fashion designs identifying styles, descriptive features, and aesthetic values through the collection photographs. Implicit evaluations were derived through external interpretations and sociocultural analysis based on reviews and reports of Miyake’s collections and designs. The results were as follows: Miyake’s fashion design is avant-garde in style. Descriptively, Miyake introduced variations in silhouette through the three-dimensionality of pleats, exploring a new sculptural order. The aesthetic values of Miyake’s works extend beyond the fashion show realm, embodying natural beauty wearable in daily life, artistic beauty through the three-dimensionality of pleats, and a pursuit of new aesthetic values challenging existing systems and traditional norms. Externally interpreted, Issey Miyake is recognized for his diverse, practical, and innovative designs, and as the first Japanese designer to present shows in Paris. Sociocultural interpretations characterize of Issey Miyake’s works as a blend of tradition and modernity, an expansion of form through pleats and three-dimensional sculptural qualities, the result of ongoing research and development, possessing timeless qualities transcending eras, and a pursuit of practicality and artistic excellence.

The purpose of this study is to examine the sociocultural meanings of flapper look in American society during the 1920s. Using the ProQuest database, I searched articles from The New York Times published between 1920 and 1929 for opinions and discussions on the flapper look. Keywords included “clothing,” “dress,” “fashion,” and “flapper,” and advertisements and articles on menswear, leisurewear, and bathing suits were excluded. In the resulting articles, I extracted the following sociocultural meanings: autonomy, activeness, practicality, attractiveness, and extravagance. Meanings were analyzed from the opinions and discussions focusing on skirt length, dresses that directly and indirectly exposed the body, heavy make-up, non-constricting underwear, the H-line dress, bobbed hair, hygiene, comfort, and consumption. In sum, the 1920s flapper look represented progressive characteristics such as autonomous and active womanhood and practicality, which matched the technological development of the time. However, the flapper look was commercialized and exploited to make women look attractive and extravagant. Even though American women had access to higher education, more economic power, and suffrage in the 1920s, they were limited in their ability to overcome social conventions and the power of consumerism. Understanding the double-sidedness of flapper look within the social context of the time would enhance the comprehension of the relationship between women’s lifestyles and changing fashion.