Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake dies at 84
Japanese fashion designer Issei Miyake died at the age of 84, his company announced.
Known for his innovative styles and fragrances, Miyake has built a global fashion design brand that has included designing Steve Jobs' iconic black turtleneck sweaters.
Miyake has been known to work with both traditional and modern styles throughout his long career
.On Friday, he died of liver cancer, and a private funeral was held for him, according to Japanese media.
Miyake was born in Hiroshima in 1938 and was only seven years old when the city was destroyed by an atomic bomb dropped by the United States.
He was reluctant to talk about it when he became an adult. He wrote in the New York Times in 2009 that he did not 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 live with," he wrote, adding that he prefers to think of things "that can be built rather than destroyed, that can bring beauty and joy."
Miyake had wanted to be a dancer or athlete as a young man - but that changed when he read his sister's fashion magazines.
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He studied graphic design at the University of the Arts in Tokyo, then moved to Paris in the 1960s, where he worked with established fashion designers Guy Laroche and Hubert de Givenchy.
He then moved to New York, where he stayed for a short time, before returning to Tokyo in 1970 to open the Miyake Design Studio.
By the 1980s, he was recognized as one of the world's leading designers, using materials ranging from plastic to metal - also traditional Japanese materials, and paper.
Miyake developed a new method for bending fabric by rolling it between layers of paper in a heat press.
This was a very successful technique after experiments proved that the folds stay firm and do not wrinkle.
Miyake became known for creating a style that was both high-tech, functional, and comfortable. He was a well-established name not only in the Japanese fashion industry but also on the global catwalks.
Her fashion house has developed highly desirable clothing for men and women, as well as bags, watches, and perfumes. There are rumors that a bottle of the perfume known as "Leo de Lisie", which went on sale in 1992, is sold every 14 seconds.
His A-Bock line, pieces of which can be seen in museums now, used a special fabric-weaving machine that made clothes from continuous pieces of cloth.
Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, asked Miyake to design his signature black high-collar jackets and is said to have made 100 of them for $175 apiece.
Miyake was awarded the prestigious Kyoto Prize in 2006 for his dedication to the arts and was awarded the Culture Medal in 2010 for his "outstanding achievements" in the fields of culture and arts in Japan.