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Fashion's Issey Miyake Haunted by Hiroshima

Obama's disarmament talk inspires A-bomb survivor to speak up

By Jason Farago, Newser Staff

Posted Jul 14, 2009 9:08 AM CDT

(Newser) – Issey Miyake’s clothes are famous for color and exuberance, but the Japanese designer has a tragic past: He survived the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Miyake has declined to talk about the blast, “preferring to think of things that can be created, not destroyed,” he writes in the New York Times. But President Obama’s call for a world without nukes “awakened something buried deeply within me.”

Now, after the US and Russia signed an arms-reduction deal, Miyake would like Obama to visit Hiroshima, which commemorates the blast Aug. 6. The sight of an American president there, Miyake writes, “would be both a real and a symbolic step toward creating a world that knows no fear of nuclear threat.”

[Images (5)]

[Quotes (1)]

A model presents a creation by Japanese designer Dai Fujiwara for Issey Miyake men's Spring-Summer 2010 fashion collection in Paris, June 25, 2009. (AP Photo)

Passersby walk past a new Issey Miyake boutique in Paris, Sept. 30, 2008. (AP Photo)

A model for Issey Miyake's Fall-Winter 2008-2009 ready-to-wear collection presented in Paris, Feb. 26, 2008. (AP Photo)

The mushroom cloud about one hour after a nuclear bomb was detonated above Hiroshima, Japan, Aug. 6, 1945. (AP Photo)

Doves fly by the Atomic Bomb Dome during the ceremony to mark the 63th anniversary of the world's first atomic bombing at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, Aug. 6, 2008. (AP Photo)

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I was there, and only 7 years old. When I close my eyes, I still see things no one should ever experience: a bright red light, the black cloud soon after, people running in every direction trying desperately to escape—I remember it all. - Issey Miyake, fashion designer

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Fashion's Issey Miyake Haunted by Hiroshima