A-POC ABLE and Tomokazu Matsuyama turn paintings into coats and T-shirts
A-POC ABLE turned seven Matsuyama paintings into seven coats and seven T-shirts, then extended the project into a fabric-heavy New York installation.
A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE has turned seven Tomokazu Matsuyama paintings into seven coats and seven T-shirts, and the smartest part is not the print but the process. The TYPE-XII project uses the label’s cloth-making system instead of a conventional pattern-first workflow, so the image, the cut and the textile are built as one object rather than assembled in stages. That is what gives the work its techwear edge: this is wearable engineering, not a simple artist collaboration.
The project began with limited-edition pieces created for Matsuyama’s first large-scale solo exhibition in Tokyo, FIRST LAST, at Azabudai Hills Gallery. That show ran from March 8 to May 11, 2025, and organizers said it brought together about 40 works, including 15 large-scale pieces premiering in Japan. A-POC ABLE says the response to that presentation pushed the collaboration forward, this time into new coats that reconstruct Matsuyama’s imagery as a single piece of cloth.
The new TYPE-XII release began on July 1, 2026, and the project now stretches into New York. ISSEY MIYAKE / NEW YORK and the adjoining MADO gallery will present a special exhibition from July 9 through August 31, 2026, giving the clothes a spatial setting that feels as considered as the garments themselves. The New York installation will include equestrian sculptures made with the same original 3D-printing technology used for A-POC ABLE mannequins, along with related paintings and a ceiling-hung arrangement of colorful fabrics.
That New York stop also carries an exclusive T-shirt line printed with all seven of Matsuyama’s works on A-POC’s seamless knit. It is the clearest expression of what this collaboration is really testing: not whether art can sit on clothing, but whether fabrication can determine how a work lives as clothing in the first place. For techwear, that is the sharper proposition. The future looks less like a graphic placed on a shell and more like a textile language where art, construction and surface are designed together.
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