A recent post on the Williamsburg subreddit asking why employees at Ms Lam Montessori wear Issey Miyake daily sparked an unexpected viral moment for the preschool chain. The Reddit user admitted to being confused and a bit jealous after viewing photos of teachers in raspberry, cobalt, and apple green plissé dresses that closely resembled the Pleats Please line by Japanese designer Issey Miyake, an avant-garde choice for a preschool classroom.
Those pictures were subsequently shared on X, where they were viewed 3.5 million times, drawing reactions primarily along the lines of only in Brooklyn. Stephanie Woo, the head of school at Ms Lam Montessori, explained via email from Taiwan that the garments are actually crafted by a more affordable Japanese designer, Yamasaki Takashi. While a genuine Pleats Please frock can cost around $700, these alternatives are priced at roughly a tenth of that amount and are worn across all company locations.
Ms Lam is a Mandarin immersion school originally founded in Taipei, Taiwan, where it operates 14 branches alongside its five schools in Brooklyn. Woo describes herself as a huge fan of Issey Miyake, owning a couple of pieces reserved for special school events. However, the school selected Yamasaki for its understated designs, comfort, durability, and price point, noting that the garments hold their color and shape remarkably well even after being washed a hundred times. They still come out of the dryer looking much the same.”, even after we’ve washed it 100 times. By constructing garments first, flat, at a much larger size than they would eventually fold down to, then heat-pleating afterwards, miyake developed his then revolutionary near-permanent pleats in the late 1980s. Those qualities made it a particularly good fit for everyday life in our classrooms,” she writes, adding that the clothes wash well and “hold their color and shape beautifully.
The uniforms were originally suggested by Woo’s mother, the original Ms Lam, who introduced the Montessori method to Taiwan. Staff in Taiwan have worn the outfits for 12 years, while Brooklyn staff have worn them for eight years. Woo emphasizes that uniforms help young children aged one to six easily recognize helpful adults even on a busy campus, noting that children are naturally drawn to beauty and benefit from having it part of their daily routine during the Montessori absorbent mind phase.
The internet fascination was partly fueled by a broader fashion resurgence of the Pleats Please line, which launched in 1993. A standout item known as the Madame T stole became a major social media draw, leading the shopping platform Lyst to rank it among the summer’s hottest products alongside a 100% quarter-on-quarter increase in demand for Issey Miyake. A large piece of plissé fabric with a diamond-shaped neck hole, which comes with an instruction booklet for the many ways it can be folded around the body – has recently become a social media fascination, one particular garment – the Madame T stole.
Launched in Tokyo in 1970, Issey Miyake and its Pleats Please line have maintained enduring popularity. Miyake was the pioneer among Japanese designers who broke into European fashion, followed by Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons. Using thermoplastic polyester properties to retain shape rather than cheap knockoffs, the brand has long appealed to accomplished creative figures such as Zaha Hadid, Solange Knowles, Meryl Streep, Tessa Thompson, Joni Mitchell, Lorde, and Doja Cat.
Dr Sasha Raspopina, course leader for fashion marketing and journalism at London Metropolitan University, noted that the brand carries an if you know you know appeal in the west and has gained traction among young people in east London signaling creativity. She initially mistook the Montessori photo for a meme due to the contrasting aesthetic of a kindergarten teacher. Given that context, Raspopina thought the Montessori image was a meme at first because the garment seemed to speak of an “alternate universe” to that of the kindergarten teacher.
Professor Wessie Ling, a visiting professor of transcultural arts and design at the University of Bologna, immediately recognized that the dresses were not genuine Miyake based on the materials and draping. She highlighted the deep historical ties between Japan and Taiwan stemming from the colonial period from 1895 to 1945, noting a profound east Asian admiration for first-generation Japanese designers. Miyake opened the first boutique in Paris in the 1970s, establishing himself as the signature Japanese designer for women reaching executive levels.
