Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake has created a range of LED lamps for Italian lighting company Artemide that unfold from flat 2D shapes into 3D shades.

Called IN-EI, each one is folded from a single piece of fabric that's made of recycled plastic bottles. Fibres in the material make it self-supporting so there's no need for a separate frame inside.

The project is a development of Miyake's earlier 132 5. project, where the same folding principles transform flat geometric pieces into garments. The lamps are on show at the Issey Miyake boutique at 11 Rue Royale, 75008 Paris, until 30 June as part of city-wide festival Designer's Days.

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Photographs are by Hiroshi Iwasaki.

Here's some more information from Artemide:

DESIGNER’S DAYS PRESS RELEASE - 31st may / 4th june 2012

A SCULPTURE OF SHADOW AND LIGHT: IN-EI ISSEY MIYAKE

"Beauty lies not in objects, but in the interaction between the shadow and light created by objects." Junichiro Tanizaki, ‘In Praise of Shadows’

"When you see them, you can’t help feeling moved; when you understand them, you are full of wonder seeing a future we thought unreachable and couldn’t imagine this beautiful”. Ernesto Gismondi introduces IN-EI ISSEY MIYAKE’s lighting, as conceived by Issey Miyake and his Reality Lab, and brought to life by Artemide.

“IN-EI” – Japanese for “shadow, shadiness, nuance”. The art of lighting has a conceptual and technological heritage at the Miyake Design Studio, dating back to 2010, when Issey Miyake and his research and development team called Reality Lab presented «132 5.ISSEY MIYAKE». This new process was developed using a mathematical program with 3-D geometric principals by Jun Mitani. 132 5. ISSEY MIYAKE is an extremely ingenious way by which to make clothing, and a process that provides yet another example of directions the quest for innovative textiles technologies can take.

The project comes from the intersection of creativity and mathematics, resulting in clothing that can be folded flat and become 3D shapes, starting from a single piece of cloth. As the Reality Lab explored “132 5. ISSEY MIYAKE”’s potential in areas beyond clothing, a natural extension of the process was lighting products. IN-EI ISSEY MIYAKE was born from a collaboration with Artemide marrying their lighting expertise with the Lab’s innovative approach to the material and design.

"I am extremely proud of this collaboration”, Ernesto Gismondi explains; "Issey Miyake devotes his extraordinary artistic commitment to a quest dedicated to men’s needs and existence. The same commitment you can see in The Human Light, Artemide’s mission and philosophy. We share Miyake’s values and visions."

Such similarities of vision come from shared core values behind both Artemide’s and Reality Lab’s research. The project revolves around a fabric derived from entirely recycled materials, diffusing light in extremely interesting ways; it is a re-treated fibre made using PET bottles. The bottles are processed using an innovative technology that reduces both energy consumption and CO2 emissions up to 40% when compared to the production of new materials. Issey Miyake’s artistic vision, applied to the new 3D mathematical process, combines the Japanese tradition of light with Miyake’s unique ability to translate tradition into modernity. Artemide ani- mates these sustainable and striking shapes using LED lighting, today’s most relevant sustainable technology.

The IN-EI ISSEY MIYAKE lighting collection was co-developed and manufactured by Artemide. It is a collection of free-standing, table and hanging lights. Each lampshade is created using 2 or 3D mathematic principals, where light and shade harmoniously alternate. Miyake’s unique folding technology creates both statuesque forms as well as sufficient solidity. The structure of the recycled material, together with an additional surface treatment allows these shades to perfectly keep their shape without the need for internal frame, and to be re-shaped when needed. They can be easily stored flat when not in use. The innovative meaning of the “132 5. ISSEY MIYAKE” project lies in its numbers; 1 refers to the one-piece fabric used for each product; 2 comes from the 2D initial folding process; 3 refers to 3D; 5, preceded by an empty space, refers to the metamorphosis turning folded shapes into clothing or objects. Five also is an auspicious number, and represents the desire for the clothing or objects to continue to assume new dimensions in the future.

Artemide Group

Founded in 1960 by Ernesto Gismondi, President, the Artemide Group is based in Pregnana Milanese and operates through 24 controlled and related companies and a distribution network that includes almost 60 single-brand showrooms in major cities all around the world. The Artemide products are distributed in 98 different Countries. With 5 manufacturing plants in Italy, France, Hungary, and the US, 2 glassworks, and 2 R&D facilities in Italy and in France, the Group currently employs about 750 units, including 68 involved in R&D activities, thus confirming the primary role of innovation as a key factor for the Group’s success.

Issey Miyake

Issey Miyake founded the Miyake Design Studio in 1970 and started to present the collections in Paris beginning in 1973. Miyake’s exploration of the space created between the body and the cloth surrounding it has evolved, always starting from a one piece of cloth. Miyake has constantly set his sights upon the future and the next stage of design, whether his functio- nal and versatile «PLEATS PLEASE ISSEY MIYAKE» series (1993-) or the «A-POC» (A Piece of Cloth/ 1998-) series, that introduced a single process whereby continuous rolls of fabric, texture, and articles of clothing could be made from a single piece of thread. Today, Miyake works with his Reality Lab. project team to explore and build upon the distinctive charac- teristics of «regenerative» materials, ever mindful of the need for research and material development that will address our dwindling natural resources and the environment.

Reality Lab.

A research and development team led by Issey Miyake and two staff members, Manabu Kikuchi (a textile engineer) and Sachiko Yamamoto (a pattern engineer) and comprised of a group of designers, some of whom are young. The team was formed in 2007. It is a project team based upon the principal of collaboration and teamwork. Their goal is, through research, to explore the future of making things from clothing to industrial products. It always seeks to create products that reflect what people need and to find new ways to stimulate creative production in Japan.

See also: 132 5. by Issey Miyake

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Read more about Miyake's folding garments that inspired this project in our earlier story »

132 5. by Issey Miyake is featured in our book, Dezeen Book of Ideas. Buy it now for just £12.