Fashion designer Issey Miyake was born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1938. He studied graphic design at the Tama Art University in Tokyo and, after graduation, he worked in Paris and New York City. He returned to Tokyo in 1970, and founded the Miyake Design Studio. During the 1970s, his work was largely conceptual - he pioneered a vast array of techniques, many incorporating age-old Japanese traditions. But it was in the 1980s that he made his mark among the masses. Making use of natural fibers and other fabrics, painstakingly researched at the Miyake Design Studio in Tokyo, his designs became hugely successful.

Issey won the Arts and Philosophy Kyoto Prize in 2006. His designs influence not just the world of fashion, but even sport. In 1992, He designed the pleated jackets for the Lithuanian team at the Barcelona Olympics.