Hender Scheme dresses Artek classics in leather – including ‘shoes’ for ‘Stool 60’

The silhouette is instantly familiar. The curved lines, functional simplicity and pale wild birch could only belong to a quiet Finnish design classic: Artek’s ‘Stool 60’.

Yet this version has a soft twist. Wrapping its circular seat and dressing its feet in ‘shoes’ is the time-textured presence of another material: natural vegetable-tanned leather.

Artek has unveiled its debut collection with Hender Scheme, a Tokyo-based leather brand, with a series of eight products blending the Finnish furniture company’s modernist design with contemporary Japanese craftsmanship.

A dialogue between two raw materials that slowly patinate with time – Finnish wild birch and vegetable-tanned leather – lies at the heart of the new Artek + Hender Scheme collection, which will be exhibited at London Design Festival 2026 ahead of its global launch on 10 October.

The collection includes the circular tops of classic Artek stools and tables wrapped in vegetable-tanned leather, a material also used to shape furniture ‘shoes’ for Alvar Aalto’s classic L-legs – compact containers to pop onto the bases of legs of tables and stools, to prevent scratches and soften acoustics.

The ‘A330 Golden Bell’ pendant light, a sculptural and reflective 1953 design classic, has also been cocooned in layers of natural leather using 3D-printed moulds; while the fluidly organic ‘Riihitie’ ceramic plant pots created by Aino Aalto in 1937 inspired a new series of accessories, including leather coasters, a key holder and a clock.

Time – and the shifting beauty of the raw materials – is an elemental theme, according to Ryo Kashiwazaki, founder of Hender Scheme. With birch and leather ageing at different tempos, the ‘finished’ products are just the beginning – as a continuum of colours, textures and atmospheres is shaped by owners’ daily lives, memories and experiences.

It was in 2010 that Kashiwazaki set up Hender Scheme – its name inspired by the idea of gender-less products – in Asakusa, a low-key district in east Tokyo long known for its artisanal shoemaking heritage. Today, the name is synonymous with a clean-lined minimalism and material purity, as embodied by Hender Scheme’s crafted shoes and modern accessories, ranging from bags to furniture.

Its heartbeat is Sukima, a creative space in an industral-edged concrete building housing a gallery on a quiet street in Kuramae, east Tokyo, which stages contemporary art exhibitions. Here, Kashiwazaki spoke to Wallpaper* on the eve of the Artek + Hender Scheme collection launch – about shoes for stools, his passion for Artek, the spaces in-between and his quest for freedom.

Wallpaper*: What philosophy shapes Hender Scheme?
Ryo Kashiwazaki: Timeline. We focus on the timeline of products. Our philosophy is that our products are not finished at the point of sale – they are completed by the user, through the process of ageing and daily use. This is our manifesto. We work mainly with leather, which is a good material to express this concept. With natural tan leather, you can see all the changes with the passing of time and usage.

W*: Tell me about vegetable-tanned leather?
RK: When we started the brand, I just liked it. Then I realised it was a really good material to communicate our philosophy. I wanted to express a timeline through our products and brands so it became our main material. We are half-design industry, half-fashion industry, so we wanted to balance the timeline and make something not too fast but something new.

W*: It’s a sensitive balance.
RK: Yes – we call this balance sukima – the space in-between. We try to be in-between. We are in-between fashion and craft and technology.

W*: Hender Scheme designs are often very clean and minimalist. What inspires this?
RK: If I’m honest, we just naturally do what we want to do. There is no specific design strategy – we are very small. But the most important thing for us is to be very independent and very free. Freedom is the most important thing for me.

W*: What was the seed for the Artek collaboration?
RK: I’m a big fan of Aalto and Artek. I travelled to Finland around 15 years ago on my honeymoon with my wife. Of course I visited Aalto’s studio. I also owned a few Aalto and Artek products. We often do studies in our studio, to practise our leather techniques and our design – and we did one study, making ‘Uten.Silo’ [the 1969 plastic, wall-mounted storage system by Dorothee Becker, currently produced by Vitra] in natural leather. It was just a study for the studio, not for sale. But my good friend was impressed – and he took a picture and showed it to Vitra and Artek. That led to the start of the conversation about four or five years ago.

W*: How did the project unfold?
RK: At that point, it was not about collaborations. The starting point was just making conversation and trying to get to know each other. It was very natural. Then Artek’s managing director visited us and was also surprised to see this. We slowly started talking about what we could do together. We found we already have a very close philosophy.

W*: Where do you feel Hender Scheme overlaps with Artek
RK: I think it is about timeline. We like to respect natural materials. It is a little different in terms of shoes and leather, and wood and furniture, but I think it’s all moving in the same direction: the idea of respecting timelines and the ageing process. Industrial production involves trying to make exactly the same thing – but I feel that we are doing the opposite. We like elements that are unique and different.

W*: Can you tell more about the physical qualities of vegetable-tanned leather?
RK: It’s not coated, so it’s really pure, raw leather. Its surface naturally oxidies with time. Even if it’s not exposed to sunlight, it slowly ages. Firstly, the colour changes and deepens. Then it becomes marked or scratched, with its usage showing on the surface. So when you look at it, you can feel what happened in your life at different moments in time. The user’s memories can be remembered through the material as it ages. This works particularly well with furniture, as it has a long life.

W*: Tell me about the process of bringing this project to life.
RK: It took almost five years. It was quite a difficult balance. We wanted to respect Artek’s outlines and forms and tried not to do too much. There were so many different possible approaches. My friend Daisuke Motogi had already done the ‘Hackability of the Stool’ project [repurposing ‘Stool 60’ into more than 100 other objects, from a flower pot to a turntable, in 2023], so I couldn’t use that approach [laughs]. We did a lot of studies. We did mock-ups for bags. We thought about skateboards. But eventually, because our core process is shoemaking, we found that stools can also wear shoes. That’s when we found our concept. It’s not just about how this looks – it’s really functional. You can avoid scratches on the floor and also soften the noise.

W*: Can you tell me about the ‘Golden Bell’ pendant light?
RK: We’ve never made lighting before, apart from one table light with a New York retailer a long time ago. This time, we wanted to approach something new and we were drawn to this pendant light. Over the past five years, we’ve developed a 3D printer in our studio – and our techniques for making moulds are getting better and better. So I thought we could create a 3D object – which is how we made the lamp.

W*: What drew you to this light?
RK: I felt it was really beautiful. And from a technical point of view, I thought it could be made of leather. This pendant light has many different versions, mainly using a single piece. But in the archive, we found a separate version in several pieces. This one has three pieces. We made the top parts in 3D-printed leather – and kept the bottom part in brass, like in the original model, so light can shine through it. It was very difficult to make – it took almost three years.

W*: How about the accessories?
RK: These are inspired by Aino Aalto’s early planters. She made three different shapes. We wanted to take the shape and do something different with it. So we made a mock-up for these shapes and chose this one. It is a beautiful match with the material. We made these objects by dipping the leather into water and making a mould using a 3D printer. The leather is placed between two mould parts, with pressure applied. It takes about two or three days to dry.

W*: Can you remember the first moment you were drawn to Artek?
RK: When I was a student, I had a few friends who were into architecture and they had Artek stools, maybe a chair. That was my first discovery. Then after, I saw a lot of Aalto stools in Comme des Garçons. I’m very drawn to Aalto’s work. I think it is the balance. If you have an Artek stool in your home, you can feel its presence, but it’s not too much.

W*: And now we’re sitting in east Tokyo, which seems to be in the DNA of Hender Scheme.
RK: We’re on the east side of Tokyo. Asakusa nearby was historically a shoemaking neighbourhood. When I started making shoes here, there were no cafes or stores around. We call it shitamachi – or downtown. It’s very local and people are very connected here. Now it’s getting more popular among younger generations, as central rents increase.

W*: What is the shoemaking industry like here today?
RK: There are still many workshops around us and we still collaborate with many people – there is still an ecosystem here. But it is decreasing as people get older. We’ve also started in-house making now.

W*: Tell me about Sukima, where we are now. The concept seems to go far beyond shoes?

RK: Sukima is a gallery – an alternative space that aims to give opportunities to artists – as well as a showroom and office. The gallery has an exchange system. We don’t take commission for sales – but we ask [each artist] to give us one artwork. It is a really new concept and it works very well. We do four or five exhibitions a year. This piece on the wall behind me is by Kohei Yamada, a very popular young artist. When you avoid money exchange, you become very, very free. Our communication has completely changed as we don’t need to talk about money. I receive a lot of inspiration through this project.

W*: What were the biggest lessons of this creative journey
RK: When I’m designing products for Hender Scheme, I have the answer from the beginning. Then I work towards that idea. With my own collection, everything is inside out – I’m always judging myself. But with this project, it was a totally different approach. There was a lot of information, a lot of people. Especially this time, I really didn’t want to say, ‘Hey, we are Hender Scheme!’ I wanted to find a nice balance between the product and concept and attitude.

W*: And what’s your ultimate hope with this collection?
RK: To [put it simply], I wanted to show shoes for stools as a new product. Because I think no one has thought to put shoes on stools. Also, if I find these products in a 2nd Cycle store in Finland in the future, that would be great. But mainly? I hope people have fun with these projects. Just enjoy.

Artek + Hender Scheme collection will be exhibited at London Design Festival 2026, and will be released globally on 10 October 2026