TYPE-B

TYPE-B

Bonding of traditional handicrafts and ideas.

The sixth installment of the series of movies focusing on A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE’s making things features TYPE-B. The bumpy and uneven texture of the geometric textile may at first seem like a printed pattern, but that’s only half the answer. That’s because it applies printing technology to paste together different materials, in other words, it is updating the technology of bonding. It may seem complicated (it certainly requires sophisticated handwork), and that is exactly why this movie has been created, to show all of the complex processes.

The core of the process of making things is a hand-printing dyeing technique called tenassen from Kyoto. In this traditional dyeing technique, artisans use a squeegee to evenly print a pattern on fabric by hand. For this project though, the handwork of those skillful artisans is used not for dyeing, but to paste together fabric only in intended places.

First a silkscreen with the pattern and design of the garment is used to apply paste to the polyester base fabric, onto which jersey fabric of natural fibers is bonded. A screen with a reversed pattern is then used to print paste with a special ingredient in it to perfectly overlap the fabric. When heat is applied to this fabric, which has undergone this double handwork process, due to the ingredient that fuses together natural fibers, only the pattern and design of the garment remains on the base fabric. The traditional skills of a water-rinsing workshop are also used in washing and hang-drying the garment afterward.

The single piece of cloth born this way expresses in advance the design of the garment created through bonding. Then it is cut out with scissors and goes on to the sewing process. The straight-line cuts and geometric texture create the unique TYPE-B pants.

Of course, since in the first place this is an application of printing technology, if new screens are designed, it will be possible to express any and all kinds of designs. Revolutionizing the entire process of making things to create new potential—the design ideas of A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE are realized through the skills of artisans, technologies of new ideas, and the flexible ideas that connect them.

Text: SETA SHO