For the global debut of Issey Miyake's IM Men line at Paris Fashion Week, two industrial robot arms (ABB IRB 6640) became the centerpiece of the show's minimalist scenography. Each robot carried a two-meter square of fabric, performing slow, synchronized movements choreographed to the emotional arc of the runway show — heavy industrial machines made to move with the softness of cloth.

I helped design and animate the motion of the robots, working on how these six-axis machines would breathe, drift, and unfold fabric in space. The challenge was translating choreographic intention into motion that read as fluid and alive rather than mechanical — and doing it under extreme constraints: three weeks of total development time, three days on site in a 16th-century former monastery (Le Réfectoire des Cordeliers), and no knowledge of the final music or runway choreography until we arrived. The motion design had to stay flexible enough to be reshaped in the room, in real time, alongside the creative team.

The show was developed with lead designer Vincent de Belleval and ATONATON (Dr. Madeline Gannon), who built the live-coding and real-time control pipeline that let us trigger and refine animation sequences on the fly — sketching motion, reviewing it with the client, and locking in final timing minutes before doors opened.

Role: Robot motion design & animation Team: Vincent de Belleval (Project Lead), Madeline Gannon / ATONATON (Robot Programming & Animation) Client: Issey Miyake

Press: Wallpaper*, HYPEBEAST, designboom, The Impression

All photographs by Ophélie Maurus.