Prolific Japanese design studio Nendo seems set on proving it can design anything, adding to its portfolio a boat shoe for luxury brand Tod's and a glass chess set for crystal house Baccarat.
The products are the latest in a stream of launches that has, in the past few months alone, included eyewear, furniture, lighting, interiors and even chopsticks and dog accessories.
"I enjoy designing anything," Nendo founder Oki Sato told Dezeen last year in an exclusive interview. "Whether it's a paperclip or a big interior, it's basically the same for me. I'm just addicted to design and I just enjoy whatever it is I'm doing."
The men's shoe, called Envelope, comes in suede or leather or a mixture of both, with the vamp (the top part of the shoe) and the quarter (the side part) visually connected by a detail modelled on the string tie used on envelopes.
"Like the envelope that encloses an important letter and is sent far away to bring people happiness, we hoped our shoe would support the foot as it travels far, bringing happiness as it goes," Nendo said.
Created for Italian shoe and bag brand Tod's, the shoe also features a rubber sole, near-invisible stitching an a breathable mesh inner.
The chess set for Baccarat features pieces made of clear and midnight blue Harcourt glass, the original fine stemware crystal introduced by the French brand in 1841.
Nendo customised pieces from Baccarat's Harcourt collection to create the pieces, using the stem of a glass for the pawns and cutting into the bowl to create recognisable elements of the other pieces.
"Instead of adding any new elements to Harcourt's distinctive style, we isolated six distinct, different elements from the glassware's overall pattern to represent the king's crown, the hem of the queen's robe, the bishop's mitre and so on, and distinguished the different chess pieces this way,' Nendo said.
The pieces sit on a glass chess board made of an interlocking grid of crystal.
"Harcourt glassware and chess may seem to have nothing in common at first glance, but closer inspection reveals intriguing commonalities," Nendo said. "Glassware invites two people to come together at a table to raise a glass in mutual enjoyment. And what is chess but two people coming together over a chessboard, picking up chess pieces and sharing the intensity of the moment? Based on this realisation, we created a chess set designed to bring the conviviality of a shared drink to playing chess."
The interview with Sato appears in full in our new publication, Dezeen Book of Interviews.