Few classes of creative people are as doctrinaire about dress as architects and interior designers. Le Corbusier favored double-breasted suits. Pierre Yovanovitch swears by Comme des Garçons, as do Britt Moran and Emiliano Salci of Milan’s Dimore Studio. Rafael de Cárdenas became familiar with Pleats Please Issey Miyake during his time at Calvin Klein, where he worked in the ’90s as a men’s wear designer.
“Calvin always flirted toward the Japanese,” de Cárdenas says. “He loved Yohji Yamamoto and Miyake.” Personally, de Cárdenas thought the look matronly, but then something changed, and the Brooklyn-based architect found himself wearing the line more and more, specifically the midcalf shorts of its men’s offshoot, Homme Plissé, clothes immediately recognizable for their origami-like texture and boxy silhouette. At Totokaelo once, he bought a pair of pants that taper from large pleats at the top to compact, narrow folds at the ankle, and he never looked back.
“My partner asked me if I was wearing my mom’s clothes. She’s big into the elegant sack thing,” de Cárdenas tells T&C. “But it’s a good way to look smart when you’re actually wearing sweatpants.”
Mom jokes aside, de Cárdenas is but one Pleats Please disciple; the inner sanctum of the tribe are found in the design, art, and fashion worlds. Zaha Hadid was a fan. Toshiko Mori and David Chipperfield designed stores for Miyake, and Frank Gehry did the New York flagship on Hudson Street. The late New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp, writing on the designer’s sway with this cohort, once compared Miyake to “a visual philosopher of modern movement, an architect of traveling light.”
Esta historia es de la edición April 2022 de Town & Country.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición April 2022 de Town & Country.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
For Your Eyes Only
A small wedding has many charms. Here's the proof
Anatomy of a Classic
Ballet flats have been around since medieval times. They still know how to have fun.
It's the Capital Gains Tax, Stupid
In the battle for billionaire political donations, the presidential election finally turned Silicon Valley into Wall Street without the monocle.
I'll Have What She's Wearing
Refined neutrals, face-framing turtlenecks, a white coat that says: I've got 30 more. Twenty-five years on, Rene Russo's Thomas Crown Affair wardrobe remains the blueprint for grown-up glamour.
Isn't That RICH?
If fragrance is invisible jewelry, how do you smell as if you're wearing diamonds, not cubic zirconia?
THE MACKENZIE EFFECT
A $36 billion fortune made MacKenzie Scott one of the richest women in the world. How shes giving it away makes her fascinating.
Her Roman Empire
Seventeen floors up, across from the Vegas behemoth that bears her name, Elaine Wynn is charting a major cultural future for America's casino capital, and she's doing it from a Michael Smith-designed oasis in the middle of the neon desert.
Are You There, God? I'm at Harvard
Why on earth are a bunch of successful midcareer professionals quitting their jobs and applying to Harvard Divinity School? Hint: It has nothing to do with heaven.
Bryan Stevenson
He has dedicated his life to defending the unfairly incarcerated and condemned. But his vision for racial justice has always been about more than winning in court.
Emma Heming Willis
Once best known as a model and entrepreneur, today shes an advocate for patients and caretakers dealing with an incurable disease—one that hits very close to home. Here, she speaks with Katie Couric about her mission.