Structural Skin Mirror by Jorge Penadés.

Remember our Madrid-based mate, Jorge Penadés, from this post? Well, we were lucky enough to meet him in real life at Spazio Rossana Orlandi during Milan Design Week, where we learned about his latest project – Structural Skin Mirror.

Inspired by his trip to Japan in 2014, Jorge was drawn to Boro: a traditional Japanese folk textile which represents two essential principles of Japanese culture; mottainai – a term that conveys a deep sense of regret concerning waste, and boroboro – finding beauty in something frayed, decaying or repaired, demonstrating a vast esteem for our available resources and labour.

This new object is also based on Structural Skin – a self-produced material made out of leftovers from the leather industry. In this case, Jorge’s objective was to go a step further and create a flat surface rather than the original leather slats, investigating new potential applications for this innovative material. Starting from the idea of a visual system for a larger collection, this mirror consists of basic geometrical shapes derived from circles and rectangles. The colours were deliberately not chosen – instead they were left to the availability of the partner’s remnants. In this case, the raw material used for the piece were offcuts and leftovers from the French fashion house Hermès’ atelier petit h. Nice.

This latest addition to the Structural Skin series was commissioned by Villa Noailles for the 31e Festival International de Mode et de Photographie a Hyères, France.

[Images courtesy of Jorge Penadés.]