After graduating from the Professional School of Fashion Design, I worked for about 4 years doing design work in the apparel industry. While active as a Designer I started to feel that it would be better if I had knowledge of better technological methods.
First I needed to learn about the technology of dying so I enrolled as a pupil into a place that teaches about dying. At The Kyoto Textile Exchange Program I met Mr Humio Tamura. He was helping out at The Kyoto Textile Exchange Program and said he’s like to help me with exhibiting at The London Trade Fair. From that meeting the decision to start up mizra in earnest was taken.
From that quick decision we decided, what can be done will be done. At the same time as setting up mizra I continues working in the apparel industry, though I felt strongly that I should put my best into mizra. Soon though I reached the decision to leave my work in the apparel industry and concentrate on setting up mizra. At that point the mizra brand was born.
Mizra, also manufactured in Kyoto, combines craftsmanship, eco-friendliness and retro-Japanese motifs. The brand's designer, Yoshiyuki Iwagishi, says that the process of creation is more important than anything else and that "torturing and killing" himself over a silhouette or a particular fit is second nature.
Mizra jeans are distinguished by a slim, elegant leg line; the antique kimono fragments used on the pockets and hems; and Iwagishi's use of traditional Japanese dyes, made from soy beans and wood charcoal, for example.No two Mizra jeans are the same because every pair is finished by hand.
