I'm loving IM Men AW '26-27
"Formless Form" shows Issey Miyake's legacy. The people he worked with and the brands he established is prepared to carry on his good name.
A lot of you probably associate me with classic styles of menswear, vintage, and basic principles of personal style. But I really do view clothing as a special medium for art. Every now and then, I like to highlight one of these shows for you. This year, that show is IM Men's Autumn/Winter 2026/27 show, "Formless Form."
You might know Issey Miyake for the mainline designer fashion, or for the patented "Pleats Please" fabric sold through various sub-labels. But the company had an ethos of experimentation and innovation that gave rise to more labels than you might be aware of. IM Men,
The show's color progression is obvious, but as it takes you through a day, each segment portrays unique silhouettes, textures, and techniques. "Dawn" involves a transition between a brilliant blue and yellow. "Kasuri" involves not only the traditional weaving technique of the same name, but intentional misalignments and asymmetries to show off the imperfections we get from a human touch. "Clay" involves a cloth I can't even explain... fortunately, they explain this all better than I can. So I'll stop trying, and just share some of my favorite looks.
I love the way they play with color here. I'm not always a huge fan of gradients or color blocking, but all of this is just impeccable, especially in the context of the show's progression.
The darker and more monotonous looks allow you to focus on texture, silhouette, and drape. IM Men uses unique technologies and techniques to achieve these; par for the course in Issey Miyake's ethos of experimentation and innovation. The decline of larger silhouettes has been exaggerated, but relaxed and slim shapes can both be beautiful when designed with this level of care.
- IM Men's own write up. Show notes? Not sure if these are technically the show notes, but you know. They explained their own collection better than I can..
- The IM Men website.
- IM Men on instagram.
- Vogue Runway's writeup and photos.
- WWD's photos
Other Collections I Enjoyed
I put together assorted inspo from the season here. Yeah, I started a substack. The posts there are going to be relatively lazy, a lot of them are going to be rehashing something I posted somewhere else, but I'll be posting there often, so it kinda works out, right? Still, this blog is the main thing, to me. If you are a paid subscriber here, I'd be happy to gift you a subscription there, too. But not vice-versa. Anyway...
- Ralph Lauren (Polo and Purple Label)
- Sacai
- Ermenegildo Zegna
- Willy Chavarria
- Soshiotsuki
- Amiri
- Egonlab
- Dries van Noten
- Auralee
- Hed Mayner
- Kartik Research
- Paul Smith
And I'm still looking forward to a few shows, particularly Valentino.
