The avant garde and geometric 132 5. Issey Miyake clothing line was, until recently, not sold here. Still, that did not stop Singaporeans from accounting for about 15 per cent of its sales.

They would buy the clothes at the Reality Lab. Issey Miyake store in Aoyama, Tokyo, while on holiday, but there is no longer any need for that, now that the womenswear collection is available at the Issey Miyake boutique at Hilton Singapore.

That is good news for fans of the 75-year-old designer, who, though ostensibly retired since 1997, has been actively working with a group of designers on the line.

It is a product of the Issey Miyake Reality Lab, a research arm of the company Issey Miyake Inc., which is dedicated to finding new ways of making clothes and products, including creating sustainable materials.

At first glance, the pieces in the line look nothing like clothing. They resemble geometric pieces of fabric. When a designer from the Reality Lab was in town last week, he showed Urban how pieces of fabric which had been folded flat turned into dresses, jackets, shirts and tops when picked up (above). Because they can be folded flat, the structured outfits are easily stored in one's cupboard.

The avant-garde designs are created using a software programme, which generates 3-D shapes out of a flat sheet of paper. After creating these shapes, the Reality Lab team then looks into how they can turn these 3-D shapes back into 2-D ones by adding fold lines and cut lines.

Hence the line's name, 132 5. Issey Miyake, which describes the process above. "1" refers to a single piece of cloth, "3" refers to its 3-D structure, "2" the fact that the structure is turned back into a 2-D shape.

"The number 5 signifies our hope that this idea will have many other permutations," says the team designer through a Japanese translator. He cannot be named because it is company policy to not disclose designers' names.

The 10-designer Reality Lab team is led by Miyake himself, textile engineer Manabu Kikuchi and pattern engineer Sachiko Yamamoto. Mr Kikuchi and Ms Yamamoto have been with the brand for more than 30 years. The rest of the team are in their 30s and includes Mr Yusuke Takahashi, who designs for Issey Miyake Men.

"We're not a normal design team, we're more of a research team looking into new structures and new materials," explains the young designer, who has worked in Issey Miyake Inc. for a few years.

Prices for the collection range from $190 to $1,030 for clothing. Accessories and bags start from $260 and go up to $690.

The line has also been so popular among men, who buy the more gender-neutral pieces, that the brand recently introduced a small menswear collection of 10 designs. For now, the menswear line is not available in Singapore

It is typical of Miyake to take a mathematical approach to designing. The designer, who started his studio in 1970, earned a reputation for approaching fashion from the point of view of product design and for pioneering new manufacturing techniques.

In 1993, he launched his Pleats Please line, which was created using a revolutionary method of applying pleats to a fabric after it had been cut and sewn. This meant that it would be impossible for the pleated polyester clothing to crease in the wash. It was a technique that took about five years of research.

The 132 5. clothing are all made out of polyester fibre from recycled bottles. The designer explains that polyester fibre is good for holding structured shapes, but is too stiff to be comfortable in its raw form.

The team spent four years researching techniques to make the fibres wearable.

The result? A paper-light fabric which is suitable even for Singapore's humid weather.

"I knew I needed to find ways by which to create clothing that would be integral to people's lives and be designed to suit their lifestyles," says Miyake in a press statement.

Aside from Singapore, the 132 5. line can be purchased in 10 cities including Tokyo, New York City, Zurich, London and Taipei. In Tokyo, shoppers can pick up the clothes at the Reality Lab. Issey Miyake store, which also carries products such as the recycled plastic IN-EI lamp, made using the same mathematical software programme. The clothes are also available at three other Issey Miyake stores in Japan.

The designer whom Urban interviewed says his mentor is still involved in almost every single aspect of the Reality Lab.

As Miyake says in the press statement: "The problems which modern society faces are more complex than ever. Not only are there environmental issues and dwindling resources, there is also a danger of our losing our most valuable resource: human skill. There is an urgency and necessity to start training people who are capable of tackling a variety of problems."

When asked what it is like working with Miyake, the young designer smiles and says it is "hard work".

"He checks every single item and his mind is always changing. Sometimes, he makes changes to our designs less than 10 days before a show," he says.

Get a copy of Urban, The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.