Miranda Kaloudis - Into the Oblivion SS26
Zurich-based designer Miranda Kaloudis presents Into the Oblivion, a collection that honors disappearing craftsmanship through meticulously restored vintage metal bag frames. Built around closures dating back to the early 1900s, sourced from France, Austria, Germany, and her own production garage, each bag becomes a fragment of memory. These frames, once standard in European leatherwork, are now relics of a vanishing era.
A Study in Metal
The collection began as a study. "They are not produced anymore," she says, running her fingers across the worn brass of a 1920s beagle frame. "It’s like working with a disappearing technology." Miranda taught herself how to work with the materials, cutting, hammering, fitting nails, and restoring rusted metal, guided by old books and calls to retired artisans. Some frames still carry their original keys, each one unique. The tactility of locking them shut, the mechanical tension, holds both weight and emotion.
Each frame had to be treated, cleaned, and brought back to life. One was discovered in the remnants of a 1930s French mercerie, another from the closed atelier of Salzburg's last leather artisan. In these objects, Miranda sees not only material but legacy.
Stories in Construction
Storytelling deepens here. What began with Nostoi, a meditation on return, now becomes a quiet resistance against endless reproduction. Reinterpreting Art Deco frames once adorned with metal mesh, Kaloudis now anchors them to hand-knitted leather. "To knit a bag takes hours. To add the rings takes just as long," she laughs. But the labor is part of the point. Each piece is deeply tactile, layered with storytelling, and yet completely practical: bags you can travel with, bags with compartments, bags you can lock.
Botanical printing returns, this time more grounded. Smoke bush silhouettes on darker backgrounds, forms that feel like they emerge from memory.
Swiss Alps crystals appear in collaboration with a local artist, replacing old wooden handles with carved stones. Even these small gestures carry significance, experiments that stay restrained, always in balance with Miranda’s minimalist language.
Function, Memory, and Emotion
Miranda’s work is never just aesthetic. Closures are mechanical, often with hidden compartments or unique locking systems. Some of the newer frames are also patinated by hand, intentionally aged to sit beside the older ones. Each mechanism, whether 100 years old or newly crafted, is chosen for its feeling in the hand.
She likens the process to archaeology. Just as ancient stones were once shaped with precision, the old bag frames were made with care we no longer expect. The comparison is clear: over time, the craft has eroded, but its remnants still whisper.
Editions, Not Seasons
Limited in number, each bag is archived and traceable. For those drawn to a particular frame, Miranda offers custom commissions. Choose your closure, your material, and build a one-of-a-kind bag rooted in history.
Into the Oblivion is not nostalgic. It is a statement that value lives in the forgotten, that detail matters, and that good design remembers where it came from.
