Special Exhibition “‘What Light Translates’ in collaboration with SHOKO NARITA”

The MADO gallery at ISSEY MIYAKE / NEW YORK presents a special exhibition “‘What Light Translates’ in collaboration with SHOKO NARITA,” from Friday, October 30 through Monday, January 4.

The IM MEN Autumn Winter 2026/27 collection, “FORMLESS FORM,” began with a question. Could a piece of cloth express the fleeting sensation that makes you want to straighten your back, arising at the seam of the day, at dawn or dusk? This exhibition presents a series created in collaboration with SHOKO NARITA, who explore “light” as a source of expression.

As sunlight passes through the membrane of the atmosphere, it scatters and shifts in color — from the clear blue of a high, open sky, to the red tones of dawn and dusk. We are the ones who look up at the sky day after day, receiving this light as the sky. SHOKO NARITA captured this on parabolic surfaces, using phase-separated glass created through a special processing technique. The glass traces the workings of the atmosphere, and depending on its density, light takes on a spectrum of colors, creating a sky within each parabola.

The sky captured by this apparatus is recorded, transformed into textile, and eventually takes shape as a single garment. In this collaboration, the light that emerges unfolds into nine gradations, carrying its colors into the fabric.

Light is not translated into a single meaning by someone. Rather, each time it passes through matter or a person, it forms a different image, transforming into something else. What does light, without words or shape, give rise to as it passes from one being to another? This exhibition presents the apparatus and garments that have emerged from this sequence.