With an ode to Italy, Homme Plissé Issey Miyake brings its brand of fashion magic to Florence’s Pitti Uomo

Against a painterly Florentine sky, Homme Plissé Issey Miyake staged a one-night-only runway show in the sprawling Renaissance gardens of Villa Medicea della Petraia, a former Medici residence on Monte Morello, just outside of the Tuscan city.

The occasion was Pitti Uomo, the annual menswear fair that takes place in Florence each season, which, alongside the main event at the Fortezza da Basso, invites a handful of guest designers to stage a runway show as part of the schedule (previous designers have included Raf Simons, Grace Wales Bonner and Martine Rose).

Homme Plissé Issey Miyake S/S 2026 at Pitti Uomo in Florence

The S/S 2026 show also marked the start of a new nomadic strategy for the Japanese label, which falls under the Miyake Design Studio umbrella. Shifting from Paris – where its spot on the schedule went to IM Men (as seen in January 2025), a more recent addition to the Issey Miyake roster – Homme Plissé will now show its collections at a series of locations around the world.

Aptly, the show required a journey of its own, with guests driven from Florence to the outskirts of the city by coach, before transferring to a fleet of black cars to navigate Monte Morello’s twisting roadways. On arrival, the Villa’s dramatic main courtyard – lined with floor-to-ceiling frescoes depicting the triumphs of the Medici family – was transformed into a playful exhibition space depicting the origins of the collection.

Amid sculptural displays featuring Homme Plissé’s boldly hued garments – distinct for their heat-pressed knife pleats, which do not crease when stored – was a series of colour swatches that the team had created through a number of journeys to Italy over the past year. The swatches included ’Cinque Terre Yellow’ and ‘Zucchini Flower Orange’, each derived from the painstaking colour-matching of real-life objects using paint palettes taken on the team’s travels (as well as to Florence, the trips took them across Italy, from Liguria to Venezia).

‘The collection was inspired by not only Florence but places throughout Italy – there are many beautiful cities and landscapes,’ a spokesperson for the Homme Plissé Issey Miyake design team told Wallpaper* (the brand runs without a formal head designer). ‘This collection is built upon colours found in the urban fabric and nature of Italian cities.’

As such, the paint brush became a symbol in the collection, appearing in a plissé painter’s vest in the collection’s opening look, while a series of degradé prints was inspired by photographs of paint brushes after they had been used. Other prints featured painterly splashes and swirls – designed to evoke the brushstrokes of the design team’s research pages – while a typically vivid palette spanned hues of lemon yellow, aubergine, and bold shades of blue.

Other nods to Italy came in a ‘linen-like’ iteration of the Homme Plissé pleated fabric, cleverly manipulated to give the appearance and feel of the airy summer fabric synonymous with Italian style. Meanwhile, playful double-breasted suits and jackets – also rendered in the plissé material – nodded towards the Italian tradition of sartorialism and tailoring, one particularly celebrated at Pitti Uomo each season.

The Homme Plissé Issey Miyake design team say that this approach is designed to ‘broaden our perspective... We believe that the knowledge and experiences gained this way will be the foundation on which we further build our design and making.’ As such, the new travelling concept is called ‘Open Studio’, started with an aim to ‘connect with local communities and a global creative scene’.

As the show took place, a series of sprinklers misted the gardens, part of an installation by Andrea Faraguna and Michael Kleine – a celebration of the grandeur of the everyday routines of life. Out of the mist, and against a picture-perfect Tuscan sunset, marched models in the collection’s closing looks – a series of parka-style jackets, surreally adorned with coat hangers.

Earlier in the day, the Homme Plissé Issey Miyake design team had demonstrated the magic of these items at a press preview – when folded away in a series of origami-like actions, they transform into a garment bag, ready for the next journey onwards. Where that next destination is – or when the team will get there – remains to be seen, but with this Pitti Uomo outing, this looks like a brand on an impressive forward trajectory.

pittimmagine.com
isseymiyake.com