Issey Miyake was Steve Jobs’s Favorite Designer

Issey Miyake passed away on August 5 at age 84.

Iconic in every way, Issey Miyake was the first foreign designer to show his collection at Paris Fashion Week in April 1974, he was one of the early designers to set the trend of collaborating with artists, and he was the man behind Steve Jobs' work uniform — the infamous black turtleneck. The famous Japanese designer's work left an impression on the Apple CEO during a business trip.

In his 2011 biography of Jobs, author Walter Isaacson describes just how the tech mogul and the fashion innovator found each other. While he was CEO at Apple, on a trip to Japan, Jobs became fascinated by the uniform jacket Miyake created for factory workers at Sony in 1981. The lapel-less jackets were made from ripstop nylon with sleeves that could be unzipped to transform the jacket into a vest. Jobs asked Miyake to design something similar for Apple employees. However, upon sharing the idea, he was “booed off the stage,” Jobs told Isaacson.

While an Apple Uniform never came to fruition, Miyake did create the black mock turtleneck Jobs became known for. "So I asked Issey to make me some of his black turtlenecks that I liked, and he made me like a hundred of them," said Jobs. Explaining that it was enough to last him the rest of his life.

Issey Miyake passed away on August 5 at the age of 84. Some of his most iconic works are on exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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