Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake dead at 84

STORY: Japanese designer Issey Miyake has died at the age of 84.

Famed for his iconic pleated style of clothing,

Miyake was also known for producing the signature black turtleneck of his friend and Apple founder Steve Jobs.

He died on August 5 from liver cancer, according to Kyodo news agency.

Miyake was born in Hiroshima - and seven years old when the atomic bomb dropped on the city.

His mother died three years later from radiation exposure.

He was reluctant to speak about his experience until later in life.

As part of a campaign to get then-U.S. President Barack Obama to visit the city, he wrote in the New York Times that he did not want to be labelled as ‘the designer who survived’ the bomb, but that he continued to ‘see things no one should ever experience.’

While he originally wanted to be a dancer or athlete, his passion for design would come from reading his sister’s fashion magazines.

After studying graphic design at a Tokyo art university, he worked with famed fashion designers in Paris.

He moved back to Tokyo in 1970 and founded the Miyake Design Studio.

His pleated designs would come to life nearly two decades later.

Miyake went on to create more than a dozen fashion lines before essentially retiring in 1997 to devote himself to research.