In the fashion industry, the byproduct of innovation is often an unacknowledged surplus. For Issey Miyake, the signature heat-pleating process—a technical marvel that defines the house’s aesthetic—leaves behind dense, 80-centimeter cylinders of compressed paper. For Milan Design Week 2026, the brand’s creative lead Satoshi Kondo and the Spanish architectural firm Ensamble Studio have reimagined these industrial leftovers as "The Paper Log," a project that treats waste not as a problem to be solved, but as a raw material for the domestic environment.
The transformation is more than just structural; it is archaeological. During the pleating process, heat and pressure cause the dyes from the garments to migrate into the paper, creating marbled patterns that mimic the growth rings of a tree. Kondo notes that each "log" bears a unique chromatic fingerprint of the specific collection processed that day. By treating these rolls as timber, the collaboration shifts the perception of paper from a transient carrier to a durable, load-bearing medium for furniture and sculpture.
"The Paper Log: Shell and Core" represents a convergence of high fashion’s meticulous craft and architecture’s structural pragmatism. By partnering with Ensamble Studio—a firm known for its geological and structural experimentation—Miyake’s team elevates a manufacturing byproduct into a study of circularity. In doing so, they suggest that the future of design lies in the adaptive reuse of the systems we already have, finding beauty in the unintended artifacts of production.
With reporting from Designboom.
Source · Designboom
