A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE has long treated clothing as more than a finished object. Through collaborations with artists, designers, and creators across disciplines, the label approaches fabric as a site of experimentation, where technology, form, and visual culture can continually be reworked. Its latest project, “TYPE-XII Tomokazu Matsuyama project,” brings that philosophy into dialogue with contemporary artist Tomokazu Matsuyama, whose vivid, densely constructed paintings have been transferred onto single pieces of cloth.
The result is a collection that exists somewhere between garment, painting, and spatial installation. Matsuyama’s compositions, known for combining Eastern and Western iconography, graphic pattern, and references to art history, are not simply reproduced on clothing. Instead, they are distorted, folded, and reshaped by the body, allowing the image to shift as the wearer moves.
From Exhibition to Everyday Life
Courtesy of A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE.
Courtesy of A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE.
The collaboration developed from Matsuyama’s first major solo exhibition in Japan, “Tomokazu Matsuyama: FIRST LAST,” held at Azabudai Hills Gallery. A selection of exclusive garments was originally created for the exhibition, but the response prompted the project to expand into a broader collection.
In this new iteration, Matsuyama’s paintings move beyond the gallery wall and into daily life. Coats, shirts, and knitwear become portable surfaces for his imagery, challenging the distinction between viewing an artwork and inhabiting one.
Courtesy of A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE.
Courtesy of A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE.
Printed in Kyoto, the fabrics are saturated with color and set against either white or black grounds. A triangular base pattern creates a quilted, almost spectral texture across the surface. From a distance, the garments can appear flat and graphic, yet up close, their raised construction introduces a pronounced three-dimensionality.
As the fabric bends around joints, limbs, and the torso, Matsuyama’s imagery becomes unstable. Figures and patterns expand, disappear into folds, and reemerge with movement, resisting any fixed reading of the image.
Inside ISSEY MIYAKE / NEW YORK
Installation view of the A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE x Tomokazu Matsuyama exhibition at MADO Gallery, New York. Courtesy of A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE.
The project is celebrated through a special exhibition at ISSEY MIYAKE / NEW YORK and its gallery space, MADO, on view through August 31. The installation brings together garments, monumental canvases, suspended textiles, and sculptural works, creating an environment that sits between a showroom, gallery, and artist’s studio.
Visitors are first met by equestrian sculptures, a recurring motif within Matsuyama’s broader practice. Produced using the same three-dimensional technology employed for A-POC ABLE’s mannequins, the dark, gridded horses introduce a sculptural counterpoint to the collection’s intense color.
Several paintings connected to the project hang above the garments, while rolls of printed textile descend from the ceiling around them. The uncut fabrics reveal the outlines and contours that will eventually be transformed into clothing, making visible the transition from two-dimensional image to three-dimensional form.
Seven additional Matsuyama artworks have also been translated into seamless knitwear created exclusively for the New York store.
A Language Between East and West
Courtesy of A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE.
Courtesy of A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE.
Born in Japan and based in New York, Matsuyama has developed a visual language that deliberately resists easy classification. His paintings combine references to traditional Japanese imagery, European art history, street culture, decorative motifs, and contemporary consumer aesthetics.
This collision of sources makes him a fitting collaborator for A-POC ABLE, whose own practice is rooted in questioning how garments are constructed, worn, and perceived.
“This project served as another opportunity to reaffirm how new forms of expression emerge when creatives from different disciplines intersect,” Matsuyama said. “I also feel a profound sense of inevitability in collaborating with the A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE team, who belong to the same generation. History and tradition are continually shaped through the accumulation of each era’s challenges. I would be pleased if this collaboration reaches audiences as an experience imbued with that same creative energy.”
Tomokazu Matsuyama Painting in Motion
Installation view of the A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE x Tomokazu Matsuyama exhibition at MADO Gallery, New York. Courtesy of A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE.
Installation view of the A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE x Tomokazu Matsuyama exhibition at MADO Gallery, New York. Courtesy of A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE.
Alongside the New York-exclusive shirts, the collection includes coats in four prints. Cascading button closures, sharply articulated seams, and contrasting white or black linings create an almost cartoon-like flatness when the garments are still. Once worn, however, those graphic lines stretch and fold into volume.
Against the store’s white, industrial-inspired interior, Matsuyama’s palette becomes even more pronounced. The paintings, textile rolls, mannequins, and sculptures stand out against exposed steel beams, glass staircases, and monochromatic surfaces.
The MADO gallery, in particular, feels less like a conventional retail display than a working studio caught in a moment of transformation. Color moves from canvas to fabric, from fabric to garment, and from garment to body. In doing so, the collaboration proposes clothing not simply as a surface for art, but as a medium capable of giving painting movement, dimension, and a life beyond the gallery.
Installation view of the A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE x Tomokazu Matsuyama exhibition at MADO Gallery, New York. Courtesy of A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE.
