Salone Del Mobile: Design as a universal language
The whole design world flocks to Milan in April for Salone del Mobile, the centerpiece of Milan Design Week, with all its satellite exhibitions and product launches that define where design, fashion and luxury are heading next.
As a hive of creativity, there could be no better place for designers, luxury houses, and tech innovators. It’s a chance to see collaborations between heritage houses and leading designers as they push for sustainable innovation, experimentation with artificial intelligence, and the convergence of digital and physical experiences, while deepening consumer engagement.
A multidisciplinary approach with a focus on design as a universal language revealed directions that crossed boundaries and cultures—from the renewed appreciation of glass and silver as artisanal crafts to whimsicality, theatricality and downright fun as important elements in our interiors as well as our lives.
Glass shines
Glass has always been taken for granted, somehow staying in the background. At Milan Design Week, it was given its due through innovative incarnations and exciting material mixes.
Murano glass, with its roots in the 13th century, finds new life in fused pieces to form lustrous textures in contemporary silhouettes and in modular lights with myriad surfaces of grooves, air bubbles, and a play of transparency and opacity.
High silver
Silver was also mined to create astonishing creations like Buccellati’s life-like creatures from air, land and sea—all with the impeccable craftsmanship the house is known for. The color itself was ubiquitous—as chrome, aluminum and mirrored surfaces that were exploited for their potential to introduce movement, dynamism, and depth into interior spaces through reflection.
Woven and embroidered wonders
Weaving is both a craft and a ritual across many cultures around the world, everyday yet precious, inspiring designers to take off from its traditional forms. Allegra Hicks uses bronze that is crocheted into shape for her Napoli Future Nostalgia collection of furniture.
Massimiliano Locatelli and fashion expert Fabio Zambernardi actually did embroidery on wood in Nullus Locus, as metallic stitches adorned vases, chairs, tables, and an entire room.
Lights go vertical
There was a certain poetry with the lighting fixtures on show—going elongated and delicate, some even with knitted coverings like in Cecile Feilchenfeldt and Karla Huff’s designs, and Dutch Studio Rive Roshan’s geometric and minimalist floor lamps “reaching for the moon.”
The sixties and seventies
Nostalgic feelings went back to these swinging decades, from Baxter’s tribute to 1960s California design and Minotti’s Mid-Century modern to the ’70s revivals at Marset and Roche Bobois’s reimagining of its Mah Jong sofa.
Flora and Fauna
Reflecting on nature to make us more mindful, designers brought flora and fauna to the home: Studio 11 turned standing lamp shades into delicate blossoms while Osanna Visconti created a dream-like furniture series of bronze stems and buds winding their way into mirrors and sofas. Furry and feathery animals also showed up, reflecting a current desire for softness and visual sensations.
Asymmetric curves
Although curves have predominated for the past seasons, now it’s time for irregular curves to add a twist to interiors, like the Chapeau table of Lago and Tribu’s sofas with sinuous lines.
Fluidity
There was a fluidity to some designs which tried to capture movement in some way, taking inspiration from nature’s dynamic forms to infuse pieces with a sense of organic motion.
Architectonic
Architecture’s structures, forms, and aesthetic principles were applied to furniture and lighting, the way Budde conceived its tables with fluted arches in different shades of marble and in Yamagiwa’s Taliesin lighting series, drawn from Frank Lloyd Wright’s archive.
Chubby seating
Designers like Patricia Urquiola, Lara Bohinc, and Sabine Marcelis were inspired by rolling hills and slabs of butter to create swollen sofas and armchairs that provide comfort both for their squishiness and cuteness factor.
