Cucumber Sake-tini

With tasting notes of Tokyo, candy coloured homes, the hottest 4x4s, style colliding with technology and the latest in bookshelf aesthetics.

The good life beckons once more!

Hot Hyperlinks

☼ Classy house & techno set from our Scottish homegirl LA LA

☼ Our new Vacation® whipped cream sunscreen

☼ The shapely BOOKGROOVE bookrack-table

☼ The best way to answer "So what do you do?"

☼ An invisible house in the Mojave Desert

SUMMER-ENHANCING PEOPLE

Avant-Garde Icon: ISSEY MIYAKE

Few designers have combined fashion, art and technology like Issey Miyake. Born in Hiroshima, Miyake was one of the first Japanese designers to show in Paris, flourishing towards a long career full of innovation and creativity with permanent pieces in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A visionary who believed that clothing is the closest thing to all humans, he became renowned for his use of Japanese fabrics which he developed himself, following his pursuit of “the democratisation of clothes — clothes for everyone, not just a few.”

Inspired by the riots in Paris in May of 1968, Miyake honed this idea of clothes that were free from social convention that were easy to care for and always looked good, a Japanese evolution of something as timeless like jeans and a t-shirt.

This culminated in his line Pleats Please which brings to life the freedom of movement, photographed season through season by Irving Penn. This long-standing creative collaboration came intuitively, with Miyake explaining, “Penn could look at my clothes, hear my voice and answer me through his creativity.”

The instantly recognisable fabric is made of polyester, an inexpensive material that was mainly reserved for industrial clothes that Miyake revolutionised with a signature pleating method. Through Miyake’s strong forms and origami-like vision, Pleats remain as in vogue as ever: utilitarian, elegant, colourful.

“The core spirit of Pleats Please is joy, and what better emotion to wear on your skin everyday?” Miyake explained.

While Miyake was known to be a private person, he collaborated with many other brilliant contemporaries, both globally and from Japan and helped pave the way for designers like Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo. Infamously, he designed and supplied Steve Jobswith the classic black turtleneck he always sported. Steve was inspired by the uniforms Miyake had designed for Sony’s factory workers and desired a uniform of sorts for himself, receiving 100 or so turtlenecks from Miyake after Apple employees vetoed the concept.

Jobs and Miyake developed a friendship, with Miyake retiring the turtleneck after Jobs’ death in 2011. With the announcement this week of Miyake’s own passing, these two revolutionaries exemplify a shared idea: design is not for philosophy, it’s for life.

Miyake’s legacy and clothing will be remembered as he wished, as “things that can be created and not destroyed, that bring beauty and joy.”

Hotter Hyperlinks

Reserved with utmost care for the most discerning followers of leisure...

☼ How Joe Meyerowitz became a pioneer of colour photography

☼ How to make a magazine

☼ Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic Hollyhock House re-opens for visitors

☼ The history of pop-up headlights

☼ Canada-based photographer Blake Smith's beachside captures from 1970s Rio de Janeiro

☼ The new remodelling of homes in Barcelona

SUMMER-ENHANCING VEHICLES

EXHIBIT A: Meyers Manx 2.0 Electric Buggy • EXHIBIT B: Mitsubishi Shogun 4x4 in Slate Grey • EXHIBIT C: 1972 Chevrolet K5 Blazer 4x4

SUMMER-ENHANCING PLACES

Manhattan Masterpiece: ICHIGONI 52

Take your poolside lounging to new levels of decadence with Vacation® brand SPF30 Classic Whip. An innovative sunscreen mousse inspired by everyone's favorite after dinner indulgence. Simply remove the cap, invert the can, and watch as a perfect star shaped mountain foams in your hand as the authentic "tilt valve" actuator is gently pushed forward. Boasting a "lighter-than-air" feel, eco-friendly propellents and our very own "world-famous" signature scent, Vacation® Classic Whip is much more than luxury-grade sunscreen. It is truly desert for your skin.

Shop Vacation Classic Whip

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