During Milan Design Week 2026, the major fashion houses presented some of the most popular and interesting projects and installations of the entire event. Against this vibrant backdrop, Longchamp transformed its Milan flagship store on Via della Spiga into a stage dedicated to artisanal excellence, presenting an exclusive collaboration with French designer Patrick Jouin, culminating in a new original creation: the limited-edition Ostara Longchamp x Patrick Jouin lamp, produced in an extremely limited run of just ten numbered pieces. A hybrid object, the result of a dialogue between design and fashion.
In Patrick Jouin’s design, leather—typically used as a covering material—becomes the object’s actual supporting structure, finished to act as a light filter. The full-grain leather, sourced from the Maison’s workshops, is treated with an innovative micro-perforation technique that allows the rechargeable LED light to diffuse in a soft, enveloping manner. Shaped like a bucket bag, the leather rests on a base of French oak: the result is a lamp with a refined and welcoming character, creating a warm and intimate atmosphere to accompany daily life in the home.
Like a chic 2.0 lantern, the design of the Ostara lamp explicitly evokes the iconic Le Pliage bag, a symbol of practicality and elegance since the 1990s, from which it inherits its most recognizable features, such as the snap button and the shaped leather tab: an invitation to unbuckle, disassemble, and fold the object with the same ease as a travel accessory.
What was the creative process that led you to identify the “lamp” as a point of convergence between Patrick Jouin’s design approach and Longchamp’s heritage?
«When Longchamp invited me to imagine an object with them, I immediately thought about movement. For me, Longchamp is not only about leather, it is about travel, departure, and elegance in motion. There is, of course, this very iconic object, Le Pliage, which almost everyone knows. It is light, precise, elegant, and it accompanies you. You take it for a weekend, you carry it on your shoulder, you fold it, unfold it, live with it. I liked the idea of bringing that spirit into another typology. Not making a bag, but imagining an object that could almost be mistaken for one. I liked this ambiguity».
Light is an element that increasingly defines how we inhabit our domestic spaces and how we relate to the places we live in. Where does the idea of a lamp that transforms lighting into a personal accessory come from?
«I think it comes from the way we live today, we are no longer in very fixed interiors, where each object has one place and one function forever. We move around, we work in one corner, read somewhere else, have dinner, rest, and travel. Even at home, we are in motion. So, first, I was interested in the idea of a light that could move with us. Not a large architectural light, not a lamp that belongs only to a table or a bedside, but a light that you can take, almost like you take a bag. The idea was not to make lighting into a fashion accessory, but to give light a more personal scale».
The connection between a material like leather and an element like light is not the most obvious or immediate. What were the technical and creative steps required to transform a material traditionally used as a covering into a filter capable of managing light diffusion in a functional way?
«Leather and light are almost opposites. Leather is dense, tactile, protective. Light is immaterial. The question was: how can leather let light exist without losing what leather is? We worked with the leather almost as a living material. I didn’t want it to become a simple shade or a decorative skin placed around a light source. It had to participate in the object. It had to give the lamp its character, its structure, its softness. The micro perforation was very important, as it allows the leather to filter the light, to let it pass gently, without becoming transparent. You still feel the material, you still see the leather, but the light comes through in a very delicate way. It is not a technical effect for the sake of it. It is a way of making the leather breathe».