The new Issey Miyake Pleats Please store is beginning to take shape.
This fall, the company will take the wraps off a boutique in NoLIta for its Pleats Please brand, which is known for its distinct take on pleating.
Although the company had signed the lease for the space at 152 Elizabeth Street some time ago, it is not slated to open until the fall and the renovation is going on now. The seven-story building, which includes high-end residences, was the first outside of Asia to be designed by the renowned Japanese architect, Tadao Ando, according to Amy Mendizabal, a real estate agent at The Leonard Steinberg Team division of Compass.
An Issey Miyake spokesperson confirmed the store-opening plans but declined to provide further details. The company operates two stores in the U.S.: a Pleats Please on Prince Street in SoHo and the Issey Miyake flagship in TriBeCa. The fate of the SoHo store is unknown.
Pleats Please was introduced in 1993 and soon became one of the designer’s most successful enterprises due to its easy shapes, innovative prints and suitability for travel.
The late designer started to experiment with pleating in the late 1980s after an exhibition of his work at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. As he recalled in the book “Pleats Please Issey Miyake”: “After the exhibition, I became convinced that I had already accomplished everything that I could. And so I began to think about a new journey upon which to embark.”
That journey led him to home in on pleats. As he told WWD in a 2007 interview: “In 1988, I started working with pleats, and I wanted them to hold their shape and be easy to care for and to be washable.”
Today, the collection includes everything from shirts and sweaters to dresses and jumpsuits in solids and patterns for women as well as a collection called Homme Plissé for men that is also centered around pleats.
