If Nike Did Home Décor

If Nike did home décor.

- Ishan Singh

Seoul—a city characterised by contrast. Where a 600-year-old fortress wall still runs along the borders, protecting towers and high-rises in place of the palaces which once stood. In the midst of the sprawling metropolis: a humble art studio, easily mistaken for the storeroom of a Nike outlet. A ransacked storeroom, that is. Although the walls are lined with every shoebox which the Swoosh has graced—the pink-and-black from a 2000s winter, the teal-andwhite of present and, of course, the timeless orange too—there’s not a shoe to be found in any of them.

For resident designer Gyuhan Lee, it’s the boxes which draw appeal, more so than their contents. His work revolves around repurposing Nike packaging into furniture pieces. “I draw inspiration from everyday life,” Lee says. Through his upcycled models, he captures the same contrast between old and new that’s ever-present on a walk through the streets of Seoul.

Lee started this project four years ago, as a 22-year-old student at the Kaywon University of Art and Design. At first, it was simply an academic exercise around crafting miniatures. He thought to make them out of corrugated cardboard, however, it proved to be far too flimsy a material. In search of an alternative, Lee began experimenting with shoeboxes instead, noting that they were piling up in his room at the time. Once he had run through all of those, he obtained more from his friends. And then he began lurking around Nike storefronts, hoping to get a hold of boxes which would normally be thrown away. The shoeboxes worked.