It Hides a Mess!
Cabine by Inga Sempé for Ariake (image: Fabian Frinzel).
“Standing mirrors are big,” Inga Sempé acknowledges of Cabine, her new design for Ariake, “so it’s important to be able to use the back of it.” Cabine stands tall, with two mirror wings angled behind, pegged back at the bottom by a woven triangular basket. Above, floats a set of wooden hooks. Sempé sees the design’s purpose as twofold. “It catches the light in different ways: you can look at yourself but also look at other things in the room,” she says. “And it hides a mess.”
Sempé’s mirror was commissioned by Gabriel Tan, creative director of Ariake. The brand, launched in 2017 by furniture makers Hirata Chair and Legnatec in southern Japan, caters to the international market, as part of which it has long planned to move some of its production out of Japan. “We were planning to show in Milan and start producing in Europe,” explains Tan. “Many of the challenges with shipping items from Japan to Europe are logistical – even before Covid.” Lead times were long and costs high. “During Covid it exploded,” he continues. “We’re in a situation now where even if you’re willing to pay the price for the shipping container, sometimes there are simply no containers.”
The standing mirror is produced on different continents for different markets.
As such, Tan wanted a collection that could be made closer to Ariake’s end consumer, wherever they might be. “The new collection will be produced in Italy for the European market,” he says, “and in Japan for the Asian market.” By simplifying the superfluous shipping that would otherwise go into making a single piece, Ariake is able to achieve both economic and logistical benefits. “It was silly to ship wood from Europe or the US to Japan, process it and then send it back,” says Tan. Products made in both regions will, by and large, use materials sourced from their home market. “We will still give customers in Europe the option of buying Japan-made products,” says Tan, but there are ramifications: “the lead time is different and maybe there will be fewer shipments a year.”
Tan sees untangling this logistical knot as bringing additional benefits. “People view Japanese companies as being very proud and traditional, and wanting to keep craft in Japan,” he says. “But for Ariake, they realised that they need to be progressive and think about sustainability and the logistics crisis.” Tan wants consumers to know that buying from a Japanese brand does not have to mean made in Japan. Instead, products are made “where it makes sense, where it’s sustainable and where you get the best results.”
In the case of Cabine, the design reflects this ethos. Its hinge allows it to be flat-packed and easily shipped. Asked whether this was part of the brief, Sempé shakes her head: “No, but it’s obvious!” Cabine, then, reflects a desire from both Sempé and Tan for KISS: keep it simple stupid.
Words Evi Hall
Photographs Fabian Frinzel
This article was originally published in Disegno #34. To buy the issue, or subscribe to the journal, please visit the online shop.