A school whose teachers’ uniforms are…Issey Miyake? Sounds too good to be true — because it kinda is. A post on r/Williamsburg titled ‘Issey Miyake Kindergarten?’ went viral last night over whispers that a local Montessori school supplied its employees with full Pleats Please looks. News of the Issey-dripped teachers quickly spread to Twitter, where the official staff photo in question dropped and, hey, it really does look like they’re wearing Issey. At least at first glance. While some users speculated on whether or not the image is AI-generated, most agreed the staff just have that shit on. 

This morning, Ms. Lam Montessori — a Mandarin-immersion Montessori school with three locations across Brooklyn — took to Instagram to both respond to the love and dispel the myth: the teachers are real people, and the uniforms are not Issey Miyake, but come from a “different Japanese brand with a similar look at a more affordable price,” to quote their story post.

The brand in question is Takashi Yamasaki, a Taiwanese label whose pleated garments do sort of resemble the late Miyake’s most famous imprint. Its website shows a lot of pieces that resemble Pleats Please essentials, like a long tank dress, elastic-waist slim leg pants, and round-sleeve t-shirt silhouettes all in pre-pleated colorful forms. But there are also a lot of departures that show Yamasaki’s own pleated styling, like this wrinkled-on-purpose vest (as in, British-English for “tank top”) with a smocked collar and waist hem. 

Pleats Please pieces from Issey Miyake usually hover around $400, with some rare or museum-grade items priced as high as $2.5k (This AW96 Yasumasa Morimura collab top is currently top of my Grailed watchlist). Yamasaki pieces, however, stay in the $1,273–$4,777 TWD range ($40–$150 USD), like. his dolman sleeve blouse priced at $1,528 TWD ($48 USD). For perspective, that’s about 14.29 percent of the cost of an actual Pleats Please top. 

Ms. Lam Montessori’s Instagram story also mentioned that its staff wear these pleated garments for similar reasoning behind Issey Miyake’s original Pleats Please concept: flexibility, both in concept and practice. The fabric is machine-washable, doesn’t wrinkle, and is adaptable to multiple climates hot or cold with proper layering.

Most importantly for a teacher, especially a Montessori teacher whose day is to facilitate tactile learning, pleats are durable. It really only makes sense that Montessori teachers, especially ones in Brooklyn, would adopt the pleats manifesto into their education. Flexible clothing for building flexible minds, Issey would be proud.

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