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The fashion world loses Japanese designer Issey Miyake

The fashion world loses Japanese designer Issey Miyake

Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake has passed away at the age of 84. Revolutionary Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake has died aged 84.

Known for his innovative styles and fragrances, Miyake built a global fashion brand, which included designing Steve Jobs' famous golf shirts. Miyake was known for working with both traditional and modern fashion techniques throughout his long career.

The fashion world loses Japanese designer Issey Miyake

He died of liver cancer on Friday and a private funeral is currently being held.

Born in Hiroshima in 1938, Miyake was just seven years old when the city was destroyed by an atomic bomb dropped by the United States.

He was reluctant to talk about it growing up and didn't want to be known as the designer who survived the atomic bomb.

"When I close my eyes, I still see things that no one should ever experience," he once wrote, adding that he prefers to think about things "that can be created rather than things that are destroyed."

Miyake wanted to be a dancer or an athlete when he was young, but that changed after he read his sister's fashion magazines.

The fashion world loses Japanese designer Issey Miyake

He studied graphic design at an art university in Tokyo and then moved to Paris in the 1960s, where he worked with leading designers Guy Laroche and Hubert de Givenchy.

He moved to New York for a short time, before returning to Tokyo in 1970 to open Miyake Design Studio.

His fashion house created highly sought-after clothes for men and women, as well as bags, watches and perfumes. A bottle of L'Eau d'Issey, launched in 1992, was said to be sold every 14 seconds.