The CUBE at ISSEY MIYAKE GINZA / 445 presents a special exhibition, “On Kamiko” by ISSEY MIYAKE.

Washi (traditional Japanese paper)—a material that had a presence in Japanese people’s everyday living for centuries—has breathed a new vigor into ISSEY MIYAKE’s clothes-making. This washi has led to an investigation of this very material, as well as other paper variants, in the Spring Summer 2025 collection titled The Beauty of Paper. By bringing to light the visual and tactile qualities of paper, as well as the sentiments evoked, the clothing presented reflects the integration of paper’s familiar, ubiquitous character and its poetic, primitive nature.
The starting point upon creating this collection was the design and making of kamiko—clothing made from washi. The washi used for the kamiko was made completely of fine fibers of hemp, called mashi,to honor the practice of more than one thousand years of washi making. This kamiko is a token of the intention to restore the culture of washi anew in modern everyday living and to carry this tradition into the future.
This exhibition presents the kamiko pieces from the Spring Summer 2025 collection and showcases a video revealing the making process, including the farm cultivating a rare, indigenous hemp species from seeds and the washi mill practicing this 1300-year-old craft. The video also features the paper mill’s account of the kamiko and the fascination washi holds, as well as an interview with designer Satoshi Kondo reflecting on the collection as a whole, and how he came to explore washi and paper in general. Also on exhibit is a series of photographs from the seasonal s campaign, photographed at LOG (Lantern Onomichi Garden), a hotel in Onomichi City, Hiroshima—a place of great inspiration to the collection.
The kamiko created this way—from harvesting and refining the indigenous hemp to folding and crumpling many times this handcrafted washi—is imbued with organic qualities that represent the flow of time, marked by nature and craftsmanship. Experience the abundant nature and the poetry of washi at this exhibition, in a space enveloped by washi.

Installations in conjunction with this will be held at the CREATION SPACE of ISSEY MIYAKE SEMBA.