For me, for the fashion industry, for everyone, this is huge news and a great loss of a warm and wonderful
man who created glorious fabrics and clothes. In the 90s I went to the 21st anniversary celebrations of the
Issey Miyake brand where Larry Adler (remember him?) unforgettably played Rhapsody in Blue accompanied by Gershwin himself on a piano roll while dressed in black tie entirely made of soft floppy Pleats – trousers, jacket, tie, shirt, the lot, amazing on his gangly frame. At the end Issey came on stage and was touchingly shy and said Thank you very much and ran off again. Later I was able to shake his hand and vowed I would never wash mine again (I did, of course). Years later I wrote and asked him for a blurb for one of my books and he sent a handwritten reply which I have kept ever since. Sadly sadly missed.
Photo: Hsinhuei Chiou, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
