ISSEY MIYAKE PARFUMS: Water, Nature, and the Scent of Hope

“Design must express hope. Design does not exist as a slave to an industry that keeps changing models solely to sell products. It must fundamentally question what human beings should be now and create the future. It must give people surprise and joy.”
── Issey Miyake

Basic Information
The Founder and the Origins of the Brand
The Brand’s Commitments
1. The Philosophy of Fragrance: “Nature Is the Greatest Perfumer”
2. Bottle Design: A Full Moon Above the Eiffel Tower
The Fragrance Lineup
Incidentally…

Basic Information

Brand name: ISSEY MIYAKE PARFUMS
Founded: 1970 (fragrance business since 1992)
Founder: Issey Miyake
Born–died: April 22, 1938 – August 5, 2022
Fragrance development partner: Beauté Prestige International (Shiseido Group EMEA)
Official websites: ISSEY MIYAKE PARFUMS / MIYAKE DESIGN STUDIO

The Founder and the Origins of the Brand

A Boy in Hiroshima Finds Hope in Design

Issey Miyake was born on April 22, 1938, in Hiroshima. At seven, he experienced the atomic bombing of August 6, 1945. His mother died of radiation sickness three years after the bombing, and Miyake himself developed an inflammatory bone disease that left him walking with a limp in one leg thereafter.

For a long time, Miyake avoided speaking to the media about this experience because he did not want to be labeled “the designer who survived the atomic bomb.” In 2009, however, moved by then-President Barack Obama’s speech in Prague calling for nuclear disarmament, he contributed an opinion piece entitled “A Flash of Memory” to The New York Times. It was the first time he publicly discussed his experience of the bombing.

“When I close my eyes, I can still see things no one should ever experience. A red flash, the black cloud immediately afterward, people desperately trying to flee in every direction. I remember it all. Within three years, my mother died from radiation exposure. I have tried to seal away these memories. I have not succeeded, but I have chosen to think about what can be created, what brings beauty and joy, rather than what is destroyed. I was drawn to clothing design because it was a modern, optimistic form of creation.”
── Issey Miyake, “A Flash of Memory,” The New York Times, July 14, 2009

A decisive influence on Miyake as a boy was a pair of bridges near Hiroshima’s hypocenter. These were the Peace Bridge and West Peace Bridge, designed by American sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Each time he saw their organic, sun-shaped railings on his way to school, the boy reportedly “felt hope in the power of design.”

To Paris: A Turn Toward “Clothes for Many People”

Miyake wanted to become a dancer as a child, but reading his sister’s fashion magazines sparked an interest in design. He studied graphic design at Tama Art University in Tokyo, graduating in 1965. Immediately afterward, he went to Paris and enrolled at L’École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, the haute couture trade association’s school. Japanese designers were still virtually unknown in Paris at the time, but Miyake worked as an assistant to the French fashion veteran Guy Laroche, then trained in Hubert de Givenchy’s atelier, producing between 50 and 100 sketches every day.

The turning point came in May 1968. Shocked by the May uprising in Paris, when students took to the streets to challenge the establishment, Miyake decided “to make clothes for many people, rather than for the wealthy.”

“After experiencing the events of May in Paris, I came to want to make clothes for many people, not just a few.”
── Issey Miyake (from his official website)

From New York to Tokyo: Establishing the Studio

In 1969, Miyake moved to New York, where he gained experience in ready-to-wear with American designer Geoffrey Beene. During this period, he also met artists such as Christo and Robert Rauschenberg, broadening his perspective beyond the boundaries between fashion and art.

But sensing Japan’s growing momentum ahead of Expo ’70 in Osaka, Miyake decided to return home. In April 1970, he established MIYAKE DESIGN STUDIO in Tokyo. He presented his first overseas collection in New York the following year, in 1971, and participated in the Paris collections for the first time in 1973. He would continue to shake up the Western fashion world as one of Japan’s “Big Three,” alongside Rei Kawakubo (Comme des Garçons) (in Japanese) and Yohji Yamamoto.

From “A Piece of Cloth” to Pleats: A History of Innovation

At the core of Miyake’s design philosophy is the idea of “A Piece of Cloth.” Unconstrained by traditional Western approaches to cutting and sewing, he continued to explore the relationship of ease and space that arises between a single piece of cloth and the body. Paper, plastic, rope, woven grass: he used one unconventional material after another, overturning fashion conventions through pleats, wrinkles, and draping.

In 1988, Miyake began experimenting seriously with pleats. In 1993, he introduced PLEATS PLEASE ISSEY MIYAKE as a brand. Created through a proprietary heat-treatment process, these innovative pleats did not disappear even after washing, distinguishing them from the Fortuny pleats of the early twentieth century.

In 1999, he commercialized A-POC (A Piece of Cloth), developed jointly with textile specialist Dai Fujiwara. He refused to give his own name to this revolutionary project, in which an entire garment is born from a single thread, because for Miyake it was the culmination of teamwork rather than an individual creation.

Entering the Fragrance Business: The Idea of “Water”

Alongside these innovations in clothing, Miyake entered the world of fragrance in the early 1990s. He chose as his partner Beauté Prestige International (BPI), the Shiseido Group’s French subsidiary. Since its establishment in 1990, BPI has worked on designer fragrances such as Jean Paul Gaultier and Narciso Rodriguez. Its collaboration with Miyake led to the landmark first fragrance, L’EAU D’ISSEY, in March 1992.

“Water”: for Miyake, it was the greatest source of inspiration and the greatest material. The name L’Eau d’Issey means “Issey’s water” in French, while also possessing a witty ring that evokes “L’Odyssée,” or an odyssey, a journey of adventure.

To bring this grand vision to life, Miyake entrusted it to perfumer Jacques Cavallier, then at Firmenich and now Louis Vuitton’s in-house perfumer. Miyake presented Cavallier with an unprecedented request.

“I want a perfume that does not smell of perfume. I want a perfume that smells of water.”
── Issey Miyake (in his briefing to Jacques Cavallier)

Cavallier later recalled it this way.

“Issey Miyake originally told me he wanted to put the smell of water, or the idea of water, into a bottle, because water is so important in Japanese rituals and cleanliness. But pure water has no smell. So I thought about Japan. I visited Japan for several weeks and thought about its delicacy, sophistication, and the depth of its culture, and even its cruelty. About the food, nature, and what water represents there. About the trees, osmanthus, and peonies…”
── Jacques Cavallier

There was another important inspiration Miyake shared with Cavallier: the Japanese custom of shōbuyu, or sweet-flag baths. In this traditional practice, people bathe with sweet-flag leaves floating in the water on Children’s Day, May 5. Their delicate fragrance was one of Miyake’s unforgettable memories.

Cavallier devised a formula entirely without precedent at the time. For the first time in a women’s fragrance, he used a large quantity of the synthetic molecule Calone (in Japanese). Calone embodies every aspect of water, its coolness, undulation, and the scent of a sea breeze, giving off a transparent aroma reminiscent of melon and cucumber. Cavallier used it like a substantial drop of morning dew, juxtaposing rose petals beloved in the West with the lotus of the East, then adding a breath of white flowers and a green accent.

“You know, it is like girls. You never forget the first one. And my first perfume was Eau d’Issey. It was a major turning point in my creative work. Every time I smell it, I am still filled with emotion.”
── Jacques Cavallier

In 1993, L’Eau d’Issey won the top women’s fragrance prize at France’s Fragrance Foundation Awards, the FiFi Awards. It also won best packaging at Italy’s Accademia del Profumo, and entered the FiFi Awards’ Hall of Fame in 2011. Its success marked the dawn of a new fragrance genre known as “aquatic,” profoundly influencing the wave of aquatic fragrances that swept the 1990s, including Giorgio Armani’s Acqua di Giò and Calvin Klein’s CK One.

His Later Years and Legacy

On August 5, 2022, Issey Miyake died of liver cancer in Tokyo at the age of 84. Midori Kitamura, chair of MIYAKE DESIGN STUDIO, had been involved in Miyake’s creative work for at least 50 years, including fragrance development since the 1980s. Kitamura conveyed Miyake’s words as follows.

“Miyake said this of all his creations, not only his clothes but his perfumes too: ‘I believe there is hope in design. Design evokes surprise and joy in people.’ Based on this concept, we will continue to pursue perfumes with timeless value, unlike anything seen before.”
── Midori Kitamura (Chair, MIYAKE DESIGN STUDIO)

The Brand’s Commitments

The Philosophy of Fragrance: “Nature Is the Greatest Perfumer”

The official ISSEY MIYAKE PARFUMS website sets out the brand’s philosophy: “Nature is the greatest perfumer.” MIYAKE DESIGN STUDIO handles creative direction at every stage, from defining the fragrance concept through bottle design, naming, graphics, packaging, marketing, and PR. In other words, rather than the “licensing business” of conventional designer fragrances in which only a name is lent, it maintains an approach of controlling every detail of its brand universe itself.

Miyake’s consistent concept for fragrance development can be summarized as follows.

A fragrance that communicates a message
A sense of hope and the future
Simple, functional bottle design
Something that possesses everyday relevance and universality, while also inspiring surprise

As in clothing design, it upholds a “pursuit of the essential,” continually proposing fragrances that begin with the power of nature.

Bottle Design: A Full Moon Above the Eiffel Tower

The L’Eau d’Issey bottle was designed by Issey Miyake himself with Fabien Baron and Alain de Mourgues. The inspiration came one night during Miyake’s stay in Paris, when he saw the full moon shining above the top of the Eiffel Tower. An unadorned conical silhouette, a crystal-like spherical cap, and matte-finished steel: embodying “essential beauty,” its form has become a landmark of perfume bottle design.

In fact, Miyake initially commissioned his close friend, interior designer Shiro Kuramata, to design the bottle. In 1990, Kuramata created several poetic and innovative prototypes, including an acrylic cube enclosing a spherical cavity. The technology of the time made mass production impossible, however, and the project stalled. Even after Kuramata’s sudden death in 1991, Miyake held on to the idea, and advances in laser technology finally enabled its limited release in 2008 as L’EAU D’ISSEY EDITION SHIRO KURAMATA.

The men’s L’Eau d’Issey pour Homme bottle, designed by Issey Miyake and Fabien Baron, adopts a powerful cylindrical form. For Le Sel d’Issey, released in 2024, bottle design was entrusted to Tokujin Yoshioka, a collaborator of at least 30 years. Its solid oval glass refracts light to illuminate the liquid, creating a sculptural form on the themes of “salt” and “water.”

“This was the first perfume bottle project Mr. Miyake asked me to undertake directly, and also the last project he spoke to me about directly, in a telephone call in spring 2022. I vividly remember the launch of L’Eau d’Issey. I sensed something different, something very Japanese rather than European. This time, I wanted to make something very simple and pure. And something sacred, something that gives you energy when you wear it.”
── Tokujin Yoshioka

The Fragrance Lineup

ISSEY MIYAKE PARFUMS has released at least 100 perfumes to date. The following introduces its representative collections and their structure.

The L’EAU D’ISSEY Collection (Women)

The aquatic-floral lineage at the origins of the brand. With “the purity of water” as its theme, it has developed a wide range of variations since the 1992 original.

L’EAU D’ISSEY (1992): Perfumer Jacques Cavallier. A floral aquatic centered on lotus, rose, white lily, amber, and sandalwood. The beginning of it all, realizing the scent of water through an innovative use of Calone.
L’EAU D’ISSEY PURE (2016): Perfumer Dominique Ropion. A modern reinterpretation of the original, an aquatic-floral world centered on lily of the valley and orange blossom. Designed by Todd Bracher, the bottle takes the form of a “drop,” with the sphere of the cap having slipped to the base of the bottle.
A DROP D’ISSEY (2021): An expression of water’s fundamental form, the “drop.” Created with environmentally conscious choices of ingredients and materials, it won Best Women’s Bottle Design at the French Fragrance Foundation Awards in 2022.

The L’EAU D’ISSEY POUR HOMME Collection (Men)

A men’s line on the theme of “the power of water,” which has continued evolving for at least 30 years since the 1994 original.

L’EAU D’ISSEY POUR HOMME (1994): Perfumer Jacques Cavallier. Yuzu, lemon, mandarin, water lily, nutmeg, sandalwood, and vetiver. An expression of “the pure strength of water springing from the natural world.”
NUIT D’ISSEY (2014): With “light shining into the darkness of night” as its concept, it proposes a new masculinity through a leather accord and woody-spicy notes. The bottle’s smoky gradient is striking.
FUSION D’ISSEY (2020): Perfumer Nathalie Lorson. A mineral fougère expressing the energy born from the “fusion” of cool water and hot magma. Sicilian Primofiore lemon resonates with volcanic patchouli.
LE SEL D’ISSEY (2024): Perfumer Quentin Bisch. Inspired by “salt,” a natural element essential to life, it layers oakmoss, vetiver, cedar, and natural ginger over marine notes of kelp extract. The latest creation, conceived by Miyake in his later years, with a bottle designed by Tokujin Yoshioka.

Other Noteworthy Lines

Le Feu d’Issey (1998): Perfumer Jacques Cavallier. An avant-garde oriental built around milk and caramel, combined with mahogany, coriander, and Bulgarian rose. It is also known for receiving five stars from celebrated perfume critic Luca Turin, who called it “portable intelligence.” Now discontinued.
A Scent by Issey Miyake (2009): Perfumer Daphné Bugey. A transparent green floral inspired by Japan’s mountains, with a minimalist composition of hyacinth, verbena, jasmine, and galbanum.
Pleats Please (2012): Perfumer Aurélien Guichard. Inspired by Miyake’s iconic pleated fashion line, a fruity floral in which juicy nashi pear and sweet peony dance. The bottle follows the form of the Pleats Please “Bio” bag.

Incidentally…

Steve Jobs’ black turtleneck: Another achievement that made Issey Miyake’s name known around the world was the iconic black turtleneck of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs. Visiting Japan in the 1980s, Jobs was impressed to see all the employees at a Sony factory wearing uniforms, and asked Miyake to design a vest for Apple staff. The employees vehemently opposed it, however, and the uniform plan fell through. Instead, Jobs asked Miyake to “make black turtlenecks for me” and obtained about 100 of them. Jobs recalled it this way.
“L’Eau d’Issey” is a pun on “a journey of adventure.” Meaning “Issey’s water” in French, L’Eau d’Issey sounds almost the same as “L’Odyssée,” or “the Odyssey,” when spoken. Evoking the ancient Greek epic, the name was a beautiful play on words suggesting the beginning of Issey Miyake’s “fragrance odyssey.”
Shiro Kuramata’s unrealized bottle: As noted above, interior designer Shiro Kuramata was originally commissioned to design the L’Eau d’Issey bottle. He proposed poetic visions such as “a giant drop of water” and “a condensed Earth where flowers, dreams, light, wind, men, and women dance a rondo.” Impossible to realize with the industrial technology of the time, the design finally came to fruition nearly 20 years later, thanks to advances in laser technology, in a limited edition of 2,500 bottles in 2008. With a perfect sphere hollowed out inside a glass cube, the bottle is topped by a turquoise-blue cap reminiscent of Kuramata’s affinity for Memphis.