Issey Miyake, The Paper Log: Shell and Core
Issey Miyake’s pleating practice finds a new expression in ‘The Paper Log: Shell and Core’, on view from April 21 to May 5 at the brand’s store on Via Bagutta in Milan. Conceived by Satoshi Kondo of the Miyake Design Studio and developed by an internal team in collaboration with the architecture firm Ensamble Studio, the installation unfolds through two distinct series of works, Shell and Core.
What links them is the material itself: the so-called Paper Log, a roll of ultra-thin paper used to protect fabric during the pleating process and which, once that process is complete, becomes pleated in turn. What would normally be considered a waste material is instead revealed here as something with a broader and more layered potential.
For Shell, Ensamble Studio worked with paper obtained by peeling the Paper Logs, shaping it into hardened objects or using it to envelop existing forms. Core, developed by the maison’s internal team, turns instead to furniture prototypes such as chairs, stools, and tables, treated with wax, glue, and binding processes to explore the material in a more structural way.
Both processes have been documented and bring out the qualities of a material that still carries traces of a previous life, not by minimising them but by extending and enriching them through transformation. In this way, the objects create a dialogue between design and fashion, past and future.
Credits: Photographer Simon 171 / Text by Melania Musci / Location: Via Bagutta 12 Milano / Creative Partner Simona Pavan