Converse First String Brings Craft to the Dinner Ritual in Milan

During the saturated frenzy of Milan Design Week, where spectacles compete for a single scroll and attention fractures into surfaces, Converse First String chose a different rhythm, which was slow and material. The brand known for the iconic Chuck Taylor All Star invited a small circle into an immersive dinner environment that treated the shoe as muse, resulting in a one-night activation where craft became architecture and rubber became tableware.

The inspiration was the First String Woven Chuck Taylor All Star, a deliberately crafted iteration of the iconic silhouette built with hand-woven leather panels produced by a specialized Italian supplier, woven specifically for the shape of the Chuck in a commitment to process and artisanal rigor over convenience. For Milan, Converse expanded that exploration beyond the product itself, commissioning two independent voices at the intersection of interiors, art, and architecture: Garance Vallée and Rich Aybar. What unfolded was a space where process and material obsession were felt so real and at full scale.

The evening also served as the launch of a media partnership with Flash Art, presenting Flash Art Volumes 003: Opacity, a meditation on transparency and its limits that found an unlikely echo in the translucent glow of Aybar's rubber and the woven geometries of Vallée's table.

Garance Vallée was invited to contribute a single gesture, and she responded with a complete spatial proposition: a modular table composed of three interlocking metal elements that assemble with the logic of a braid, part construction detail and part choreography. Referencing the woven upper of the First String Chuck where panels are shaped specifically for the footwear's contours, Vallée translated that intimate scale of craft into an architectural rhythm, the table repeating in sixty-by-sixty-centimeter modules that calibrated the room into individual place-settings while maintaining a continuous, communal line. Around it, fifty individually woven metal chairs explored another register of weave through openwork patterns that shifted between density and air, containment and permeability. The chairs could interlock with one another, physically expressing the links created across a shared meal, which was an elegant metaphor made structural. Together, table and seating operated as a single environment where premium craftsmanship became collective, a lived experience designed for proximity and conversation.

Rich Aybar, meanwhile, reached back into Converse's origin story. The brand was founded over a century ago as a rubber company, and that heritage anchored his contribution. Known for sculptural works that elevate industrial substances into contemporary artifacts, Aybar brought his material obsession to Milan with MENSA, a dining instrument in translucent rubber that reimagines the Roman mensa ponderaria, an ancient measuring table, as modern infrastructure. Carved with six calibrated cavities, MENSA structured the table, organizing portion, pause, and exchange with quiet authority. Installed along the center line, the piece became a visual axis for gathering. Under the lights, its rubber body held and released glow, turning the meal into both image and a sort of ritual. In Aybar's hands, craft was texture, stitch, weave, precision and repetition, a philosophy that echoes First String's millimeter-level attention to form, fit, and all the finish.

The evening unfolded nicely. Guests moved between Vallée's woven chairs, their interlocking geometry encouraging proximity. The table, luminous with Aybar's rubber cavities catching light, became a stage for conversation. What was the quiet genius of the activation is that Converse made us sit inside their material philosophy. The woven leather of the Chuck became woven metal. The rubber heritage of the brand became translucent, warm, functional. Everything was for experience. As the night deepened, the room took on the quality of a living still life, bodies in motion, light shifting across metal and rubber.

In a design week defined by spectacle and surface, Converse First String offered a solid thesis. That craft is beyond ornament and the shoe is a muse to be translated. And that the most powerful form of brand storytelling is a table you gather around with friends and interesting people, a chair you lean back in, a meal you remember. For one night in Milan, that craft-forward focus moved from studio to scene and we were lucky enough to have a seat at the table.

Photography courtesy of Veronika Orlova for Converse. The activation took place during Milan Design Week 2026. Words by Gloria Maria Cappelletti.

RED•EYE WORLD