Earlier this month, photos of the teachers at a Brooklyn preschool started doing the rounds online. Staff at Ms. Lam Montessori, a Mandarin-immersion school with several sites in the borough, were pictured in raspberry, cobalt and apple-green pleated dresses that looked for all the world like Issey Miyake’s Pleats Please. As Vanity Fair Italia reports, the internet quickly decided the school had dressed its staff in designer clothes. The truth is more practical, and rather charming.
Not Miyake, but close in spirit
The discussion began in a Williamsburg thread on Reddit and then spread to X, where screenshots of the school’s website were viewed millions of times, according to The Guardian. The school soon cleared things up on Instagram. Head of school Stephanie Woo explained that the garments come from Yamasaki Takashi, a pleated label sold in Taiwan whose pieces draw on origami ideas. Woo told the newsletter The Molehill that the school usually pays around 120 to 150 US dollars per piece, while a Pleats Please dress can cost about 700 dollars.
The idea is not new either. Woo’s mother, the original Ms. Lam, introduced the uniforms at her schools in Taiwan around twelve years ago, and Woo brought them to Brooklyn about eight years ago. In Taiwan, different styles mark out lead teachers, assistants and front-desk staff. In New York, Woo gives her team a choice of several styles and colours, so the look stays recognisable without feeling rigid.
Why pleats work in a classroom
Working with toddlers means kneeling, carrying, sitting on the floor and getting messy all day. Woo has said the pleated pieces wash extremely well, hold their colour and shape, do not wrinkle and can simply be left on a chair overnight. She told Vogue that Issey Miyake itself was “a little too fashionable” for what the school needed, and that the right length and a silhouette that does not flow around too much mattered more.
There is a gentler reason too. In Montessori thinking, the adult is part of the environment prepared for the child, like the wooden shelves and the plants. Woo believes young children are naturally drawn to beautiful, colourful things, so the clothes are meant to lift the room as well as survive it. And Issey Miyake has not vanished from the classroom altogether: one teacher, a former model, asked to wear her own Pleats Please collection at work, and was allowed to.
It is a lovely reminder that practical clothes can still bring joy. A bold colour, a clean shape and one cheerful accent go a long way. Add a pop of colour with our earrings or a bright pendant necklace, and carry the essentials in an easy crossbody bag.
Sources: Vanity Fair Italia (21 October 2026); The Guardian (14 October 2026); Vogue; The Cut; Highsnobiety; The Molehill (interview with Stephanie Woo). Featured image: AI-generated illustrative scene, not the actual school.
