Picture Book · Tsumori Chisato 1990s Illustrated Wool Knit Dress

Tsumori Chisato · 1990s, the label's first decade · hand-drawn print of birds and sea creatures · charcoal wool knit · metallic crochet neckline trim · silver thread seams · L 95cm flat · AU 10–14 · very good condition

Spend a minute with the print and it keeps introducing new characters: birds, sea creatures, an octopus unfurling in orange, florals in teal and violet and gold, and the designer's own name hiding in the drawings like a signature worked into a mural. All of it hand-drawn in the loose, joyful line that belongs unmistakably to Tsumori Chisato, printed across a soft charcoal wool knit and finished at the neckline with a braid of black-and-silver metallic crochet.

This is a 1990s piece, from the label's first and most collected decade. Chisato trained at Bunka in Tokyo and joined Issey Miyake's design company in 1977, rising to head the Issey Sport line before Miyake himself encouraged her to launch her own label in 1990. The illustrated prints of those early-label years, drawn by her own hand and dense with hidden creatures and lettering, are exactly what collectors hunt now. She became one of Japanese fashion's great storytellers, building collections like picture books, serious craft wearing a childlike grin. And she drew on wool here: a fine jersey with the gentle brushed surface wool takes on, warm without weight, with fine silver thread caught in the seams. Whimsy, rigorously made.