All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.
The fashion designer Issey Miyake, who died last week at the age of 84, will be remembered for many things. He made forward-looking clothes feel elegant and rebellious, and did it with ease. He was one of the first Japanese designers to show in Paris, and outfitted generations of creative types in pleated trousers and shirts. But one particular piece from his expansive catalog of work stands out. It's a futuristic and utilitarian bomber from a 1996 collection, and it has built a feverish following in the twentysomething years since its debut.
You could argue that the legacy of this jacket began not on a fashion runway but on the red carpet, when the late Robin Williams wore it to the 1997 premiere of his film Flubber. It was a chilly November day, so wearing a heavier jacket wasn't surprising. But wearing such an avant-garde design to the premiere of a children's movie was bound to turn some heads. "Just stay out of his way; he's wearing a swat team outfit," teased the E! host during a red carpet interview. "Please! Back up!" Williams shot back, flashing a smile and not missing a beat. Williams couldn't have known it at the time, but his outfit would eventually become a staple in fashion-centric corners of the Internet: these days, one can't open Instagram or Twitter without seeing him in grail fashion while promoting a movie about very bouncy goop. And while it'd take some time for the public to appreciate Williams' sartorial genius, we can now point to his embrace of this jacket—alongside labels like Acronym, Visvim, and Bape—as wildly ahead of its time.
This particular jacket was from his fall-winter 1996 collection; the design was based on the famous military MA-1 but supercharged with modular pockets on the front and a sizable rectangular one on the back. In the years to follow, this hyper-utilitarian aesthetic would appear on the runway again and again. The Austrian designer Helmut Lang sent ballistic-styled vests down the runway in a 1998 collection. In 2001, Raf Simons released the camouflage "Riot Riot Riot!" bomber. The former is widely seen as the inspiration for a standout piece from the first Yeezy season, while the latter is a rapper's favorite that commands a whopping $47,000 on the aftermarket. The Miyake jacket feels like it could be destined for a similar fate.
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Earlier this year, the popular fashion TikToker Wisdom Kaye tweeted a selfie wearing the jacket. "As seen on Robin Williams," he added alongside a photo. Playboi Carti donned the jacket in his music video for "Magnolia," and the archive-loving Kendall Jenner wore it to a YouTuber's surprise birthday party. And GQ Style included the jacket in an article on archival fashion grails. There are three current listings for the jacket online, all priced between $7,000 and $10,000.
This particular jacket symbolizes one corner of the expansive Issey Miyake universe. An industrial designer who has never seen the heavily reposted image of Williams in this parachute bomber is probably wearing Miyake pleated wares right now. Just as likely: a streetwear loyalist who could pick that jacket out of a lineup of bombers…but might not know Miyake also designed Apple guru Steve Job's go-to turtleneck. He pushed fashion forward with such spirited zest that his creations found fans in all corners of the creative world. Whether pleated trousers or a heavily pocketed bomber jacket, the late designer had a knack for making clothes that remain covetable decades after their runway debut.
