Windswept combination of hi-tech and romance

ISSEY MIYAKE mixed historical romance with modernist high technology in Paris yesterday. First came pearly-white, gossamer light sheath dresses on models looking like maidens woken by the dawn. Wrinkled fabric clung to their breasts, then billowed out behind them.

Throughout the show, everything seemed windswept and weightless but the technological processes needed to obtain Miyake's effects are awesome: fabric is sprayed with powdered linen; chiffon and ramie (which comes from a kind of nettle) are woven together and dipped in a series of shrinkage solutions that cause only the ramie to contract; cotton is randomly gathered and stitched for assymmetrical effect.

But these are not just clothes to fascinate scientists - you can move in them too, as Miyake's dancers demonstrated. His clothes expand and contract with the body; they fit tall and small; some flatten down into an envelope, while others can be crushed and slung to the bottom of a suitcase and still come out looking right.

(Photograph omitted)