This Is Not Issey Miyake's First Sneaker. But It Is Its Best
Issey Miyake is not a sneaker brand. The long-running Japanese label is brilliant at architectural shapes and sculptural materials but its footwear, while often quite good, is typically not a primary focus.
Perhaps the Breeze sneaker will shift that focus a bit.
A new addition for Homme Plissé Issey Miyake's Spring/Summer 2025 collection, the Breeze sneaker is a sleek running shoe that embodies the codes at the core of Miyake's most approachable (and pleated) menswear imprint.
Its shape, for instance, is a futuristic amalgam of existing motifs, warping any element of convention into something slightly, if satisfyingly, alien. This mirrors the artistic elegance innate to Homme Plissé, which so often applies Miyake's trademark polyester creasing technology to staples like blazers and tapered slacks.
Like Homme Plissé's core pieces, the Breeze sneaker was clearly designed under the auspices of daily driver sensibility.
This thing may have a distinctive flavor but it goes down smooth regardless of application.
Its trim silhouette is just darn good design, all clean lines and purposeful paneling. But there's also some smart design at play here.
Note the intentional placement of mesh panels that circulate air around the foot, cooling the wearer and (hopefully) wafting out any sweat. The ergonomically designed midsole sits atop a custom-molded outsole that's as lightweight as it is visually intriguing, what with the fingerprint-like curves that wrap upwards to the sneaker's heel.
And laces? Pshaw. Where Issey Miyake is going, it don't need no laces.
The Breeze smartly sidesteps silly old rabbit ears with a clever pull-tab detail that's very much in the vein of Salomon's Quicklace tech.
The Breeze is ease. For $595 via Miyake's web store, it should be, right?
Miyake's menswear labels have always been excellent — thank creative directors like Dai Fujiwara and Satoshi Kondo — but its footwear has ranged from inspired cut-out water-style shoes to rather extraneous Chuck Taylor-likes.
Last year's debut New Balance sneaker team-up was a welcome flex of Miyake's strengths applied to an appreciably odd shoe and the Breeze is perhaps the best in-line design to come from either Homme Plissé or IM Men. More, please!
