Cabbage Chair

The fashion industry accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions and is the world’s second largest pollutor. Not only does producing our clothes take an enormous toll on our natural resources, but it also generates a huge amount of waste.

The Cabbage Chair is a stool made from the paper by-products used in the clothing production process of renowned designer Issey Miyake. The chair, designed by Japanese design studio Nendo, is made from the large rolls of paper used to pressurize and pack fabric.

The designers identified the opportunity to use the large rolls of fabric when they noticed that twice as much paper as fabric was being used and then simply discarded afterwards.

“We began peeling the roll of paper, as you would a vegetable,” explained Sato from Nendo. “It became something like a chair or a harlequin stool, and we were able to sit on it.”

The small chair appears naturally as you peel away its outside layers, one layer at a time. Resins added during the original paper production process add strength and the ability to retain shape. The pleats give the chair elasticity and a springy resilience, for an overall soft and comfortable seating experience.

Since the production process is so simple, the chair can be shipped as one compact roll for the user to cut open and peel back at home. It has no internal structure and does not need any nails or screws to assemble. This primitive design responds gently to fabrication and distribution costs and environmental concerns.

Nendo designed the cabbage chair for XXIst Century Man exhibition curated by Issey Miyake to commemorate the first anniversary of 21_21 Design Sight in Roppongi, Tokyo.