A fashion collaboration using Sony’s Triporous material

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A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE is a fashion brand collaboration that uses Sony’s Triporous material.

What is Triporous material?

Triporous is a material made from rice husks, and it is this element that gives it a much larger narrative.

As designers, it is vital to consider how to be part of the solutions to issues the world is facing. Rice is a staple food in Japan, a core part of day-to-day life, and a renewable, organic biomass material. Rice husks form our Triporous material, utilising a by-product to create new clothing.

The collaboration

A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE was created to keep evolving the A-POC brand. A-POC originated in 1998 and is an acronym for “A Piece Of Cloth”. The concept is a new take on the producer-consumer dynamic, making the connection between a cloth starting as a single strand of thread to eventually becoming something a person wears.

Sony’s purpose is to “fill the world with emotion, through the power of creativity and technology” - but creating emotion isn’t a one-way street - it happens when the viewer or listener or user feels a spark of creativity in response to what you give them.

ISSEY MIYAKE INC. and Sony both work hard to resonate with people, and when you’ve got two groups with the same spirit running through their design work, collaboration is a natural outcome.

The TYPE-I Project

For our recent TYPE-I Project, three items have been released: a jacket, trousers, and a polo shirt.

Triporous has the capability to purify water and air, and it is this fabric deodorisation component that makes Triporous a fantastic performance fabric. However, it isn’t as easy as simply weaving it into a fabric – the material must be strong enough to serve its purpose as actual threading without compromising functional performance, and it can only be used for black fabric.

Rather than viewing the strictly black colour palette as a creative constraint, the team turned it into motivation and determination to show exactly what Triporous is capable of.

The distinctive texture of these items simply cannot be achieved with conventional dyeing techniques, and perhaps most importantly, Triporous material doesn’t fade after multiple washes unlike other black fabrics.

What’s next?

Our Triporous material will next be used for the TYPE-II Tatsuo Miyajima Project.

Tatsuo Miyajima is a modern artist, and one of his favourite mediums to work in is digital LED counters. For the TYPE-II Project, he came up with pieces that express time and life using single-digit numbers in blocky, digital renderings and speak to the concepts of “Keep Changing,” “Connect with Everything,” and “Continue Forever.” The numbers 1 through 9 are all embodiments of time and life; the number 0 signifies darkness and nothingness, serving as a contrasting backdrop to bring time and life into a clearer, more powerful focus. Triporous gives us the kind of deep, rich black it takes to create that contrast and accentuate the numbers.

Collaborations like this demonstrate just how far clothing has evolved. So much more than a protective layer to wear over one’s body, our clothes are a form of self-expression. Our designers hope Triporous-based clothing is something that people feel a real connection with, something to show the world who they are, and the foundation for more collaboration in this area is strong.

This article was adapted from a piece on Sony.net. The original can be found here: https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/design/stories/perspectives12/