Milan Design Week 2024
Glacier tour and partners, created by LENZING™
April 16-21, 2024
SAG'80 Showroom | Via Boccaccio 4, Milan

During Milan Design Week 2024, Studio Giorgio Caporaso took part in Glacier Tour, the event hosted by SAG'80, presenting a project that perfectly reflects the Studio's long-standing commitment to Circular Design, material innovation and sustainable furniture design.

At the heart of the exhibition was Glacial Threads – From Forest to Future Textiles, the international initiative promoted by LENZING™, demonstrating how a material can evolve through multiple life cycles instead of becoming waste.

From glacier protection to a new life for materials

The project begins with innovative geotextiles made from LENZING™ biodegradable cellulosic fibres, developed to help protect glaciers while replacing conventional synthetic covers that contribute to microplastic pollution.

Once their role on the glaciers is completed, these nonwoven geotextiles are not discarded. Instead, they are fully recovered and transformed by Candiani Denim Group into an innovative regenerated denim, proving that circular economy principles can become a tangible industrial process capable of creating long-term environmental and economic value.

The material continues its journey through different creative disciplines. Blue of a Kind, the Italian fashion brand renowned for its expertise in upcycling, transforms the regenerated denim into contemporary garments, opening new possibilities for a textile originally conceived for environmental protection.

Giorgio Caporaso's project: designing the next life of a material

Within this circular value chain, Studio Giorgio Caporaso explores how regenerated materials can become part of contemporary interior design.

For Glacier Tour, Giorgio Caporaso designed a freestanding modular room divider, conceived as a permeable screen capable of defining spaces while maintaining visual and functional flexibility. The prototype features a structure made from PEFC-certified wood, combined with a unique denim fabric developed by Candiani Denim Group.

The denim itself originates from the recycling of the nonwoven geotextiles produced with LENZING™ cellulosic fibres—the same materials previously used to protect glaciers. Thanks to their biodegradable nature and the possibility of being fully recovered at the end of their first lifecycle, these fibres become the foundation for an entirely new material application.

For the first time, this regenerated denim was used to create a design object. For the occasion, the fabric was dyed by Phillacolor in two natural colour shades, enhancing both its aesthetic qualities and its sustainable identity.

The project embodies the principles that have always guided Studio Giorgio Caporaso: Circular Design and Design for Disassembly (DfD). Modularity, adaptability and material recovery are not simply technical features but fundamental design strategies, allowing products to evolve over time while reducing environmental impact.

More than a furniture piece, the room divider tells the story of a material that continuously changes purpose without losing value—from responsibly managed forests to glacier protection, from regenerated denim to fashion, and finally to interior design.

Circular Design beyond the product

For Studio Giorgio Caporaso, Glacier Tour is much more than a design exhibition presented during Milan Design Week.

It represents a concrete example of how design can actively contribute to a regenerative system, where materials are conceived as valuable resources capable of evolving through multiple applications rather than being discarded.

From the forest to glacier protection, from regenerated denim to fashion and modular furniture, Glacial Threads demonstrates how design can extend the lifecycle of materials while generating new cultural, environmental and aesthetic value.

This approach has always been at the core of Studio Giorgio Caporaso's work: creating products that combine beauty, flexibility and sustainability, where circularity is not an added feature but the very foundation of the design process.

Press release