One of the most talked about installations during Milan Design Week was The Paper Log: Shell and Corea project led by Satoshi Kondo of Miyake Design Studio in collaboration with the Spanish architecture office Ensemble Studio. He took over by Issey Miyake through Bagutta boutique with furniture made from compressed paper—made to resemble marble and other, lighter materials. 
The idea comes from the pleated tailoring that Issey Miyake is known for. To make his origami-like garments, a compressed roll of thin wafer paper sheets protects the fabric as it is fed through the pleating machine. “The name Paper register it derives from the roll’s structural similarity to a tree trunk, with its circular marbling resembling growth rings – a suggestion of the passage of time in both the plant’s life and the folding process,” explains the brand. After being fed by the machine, the rolls are also used to transport the pleated pieces easily.
Throughout the exhibition space, the original inspiration and starting point—the roll of compressed paper—was given new life in various forms. Ensamble Studio made ethereal pieces that looked like a cross between clothing and sculpture by peeling sheets from Paper Log and then treating them with hardening agents.
The in-house team, meanwhile, came up with furniture prototypes, including a marble-like block that served as a display table and was complemented by a Corbusier-style armchair. and far away, log-like benches baring their gnarled ends, as if the paper log were channeling its former tree-like state. They accomplished these miracles by soaking the paper in wax, painting it with glue, or tying it in bundles.
This is not the first time that Satoshi Kondo has been inspired by this easily adaptable byproduct of fashion. He created seating and other installation elements for the ISSEY MIYAKE Spring Summer 2025 exhibition in Paris by cross-cutting the paper log. For the Milan boutique, he and Ensamble expanded on these initial concepts to give the material’s creative potential—which hovers between the ephemeral and the concrete, the delicate and the robust—its most luxurious interpretation.
Photo editor’s own.
