Issey Miyake’s trippy new sunglasses are inspired by pottery

Issey Miyake’s latest design is a pair of sunglasses inspired by the art of pottery.

The glasses, called “Uroko,” are part of Miyake‘s Spring Summer 2026 collection, Dancing Texture. Rather than the typical two-lens structure, they feature eight separate lenses that curve around the temples like a trippy optical illusion. While the design itself reads futuristic, the texture of the frames is almost organic—like a relic of an ancient advanced society. They’re set to debut on Miyake’s website in mid-March for $680.

Each piece of the Dancing Texture collection, which includes structured garments alongside billowing, patterned textiles, pulls inspiration from the work of the late potter Kamoda Shōji, who’s considered to be one of Japan’s most influential ceramic artists of the 20th century. 

The Uroko glasses are not only based on a common motif found in Kamoda’s work, but also mimic the finishing process of his clay pottery, making each pair a one-of-one.

A combination of 3D printing and Japanese craftsmanship

Kamoda, who died in 1983, rose to national popularity in the 1970s thanks to his approach to pottery that blended attention to Japan’s ceramic history and his own innovative concepts. He used local clay from the small town of Tōno, which was typically used for roof tiling, making it unusually rough. Instead of relying on a potter’s wheel, he preferred to hand-coil the clay, which meant a distinctly labor-intensive process. Per a 2022 exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, every one of Kamoda’s pieces was designed to be both functional and aesthetically pleasing.

To capture that ethos of texture, function, and aesthetics, Miyake’s team started with a design that’s an ode to one of Kamoda’s signature patterns. The Uroko’s eight lenses are a reference to a swath of finely detailed scales, which Kamoda often returned to in his ceramic work, frequently as an intricate web that would cover an entire vase or bowl. 

Miyake’s team created a custom 3D-printed template for the frames, which includes two lens spaces for the eyes and six more spaces that circle around to the ears. Given the unusual shapes of the glasses, mass-produced lenses were out of the question. Instead, Miyake’s team designed lenses with a specially engineered concave cut to fit within the compact frame. 

“Each lens is cut into a scale-like shape so that it fits precisely into its corresponding frame,” a brand spokesperson explains. “Because the frames are small and uniquely shaped, we went through many rounds of prototyping to refine the lens geometry. Through this process, we developed a lens shape that can be fitted seamlessly into the frame without any gaps.”

Once the lenses were finished, craftsmen on Miyake’s design team assembled each component by hand. As a final detail, they hand-finished the frames, purposefully accentuating their textured surfaces to reveal subtle variations in the 3D-printed material. This step, like the glazing of a series of ceramics, ensures that no two pairs of glasses are the same—and makes any imperfections an intentional part of the design.

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