VISI’s editor-in-chief Steve Smith reports back from his recent trip to Milan.
WORDS Steve Smith PHOTOS Supplied
As Italian cities go, Milan isn’t high up on tourist’s list of must-sees. Unlike say Rome or Florence that entertain travellers for a living, Milan is a working city. Of course it is the home to a number of celebrated Italian heritage icons – the great Duomo di Milano cathedral, Da Vinci’s The Last Supper mural at the Santa Maria delle Grazie convent, and the OG of posh shopping malls, the glass-domed Galleria Vittorio Emanuelle II – but that aside, most folk are here to earn a living.
Home to Italy’s national stock exchange, Milan is a financial hub, but more famously, also home to the famously stylish nation’s fashion and design industries. There are a lot of very cool people walking the streets… especially during one week of the year in April when the city hosts Milan Design Week and its crown jewel, Salone del Mobile.
Salone is the name given to the world’s premier furniture and interior design fair held at the massive Fiera Milano exhibitions grounds. Think CTICC or Nasrec times ten, with hall after massive hall occupied by the world’s top luxe interior brands, along with a number of independents, and up-and-coming young designers. There are 16 halls and you’ll do well to cover two or three properly in one day. Salone has been going since 1961 and in the late 1980s various city-wide pop-up events started to happen too that that have now grown into what’s known as Milan Design Week.
So that’s the back story. I spent five days in Milan – dividing my time between Salone and the various pop-ups – and these are the trends that caught my eye.
TREND #1. THE MAKERS MARK
Core
A standout at Salone was the Core range designed by South Tyrolean designer and architect Hannes Peer for Milanese brand SEM. We know “craft” is a global trend in furniture design and Hannes is very intentionally displaying the handmade nature of his Core range through the carved-wood bas-reliefs on each piece. Inspired by a visit to MoMA in New York and the work on display by the late American sculptor Louise Nevelson, the Core range references her 1970s stacked wooden assemblage sculptures. It features eight pieces wrought in solid mahogany, rosewood and cherry with the rough forms milled with a CNC carver, before each element was refined by a carpenter, who treated the surface with a beeswax finish to achieve the collection’s warm, honey-coloured tone. sem-milano.com
TREND #2. SOFT NATURED
Nature’s palette – softer shades of browns, blues and especially green – was the clear furniture trend when walking through Salone’s massive halls at the Rho Fiera Milano venue.
Muted
German design brand ClassiCon worked with Singaporean designer Gabriel Tan on a round-cornered modular sofa range called Soft Stone. Taking his cues from both sculpture and architecture, Tan was inspired by the staggered stone terraces in Porto’s Parque da Cidade, along with as the work of American sculptor Isamu Noguchi. It reminded me too of the incredibly precise pre-Inca stone walls of Cusco and Machu Picchu in Peru. classicon.com
Glossy
Shiny accents added a little punch to the muted palette – especially with high-gloss tables as statement pieces. Here Philippe Starck’s Bonheur Du Jour armchair for Kartell is shown with the Milanese design brand’s glossy Neutra pendant and K-Top tables with high-gloss lacquered legs and tops with a variety of finishes. kartell.com
TREND #3. BOLD NATURED
And then there were nature’s party people. Proof that nature also likes to unfurl its party blowers and throw coloured festival powder was an explosion of bright greens, browns, mustards, and THAT blue. Bright cobalt blue was prevalent as the statement piece among the greens and browns.
Caruso cabinet
Designed by Paolo Cappello for Miniforms, the Caruso Cabinet features a built-in Bluetooth speaker housed in its ceramic horn. The trumpet-shaped speaker references the gramophones that once played scratchy 78s, ushering in their to their digital-age version. miniforms.com
Yve chair
I loved this indoor/outdoor armchair by Piero Lissoni for Kartell. Simple, rationalist, reducing form to the essential, it features a bent line that traces the base, armrests, and backrest support, creating a lightweight tubular structure. kartell.com
Minform Amia chair
Flying the flag for cobalt blue was the Miniform’s Amia chair designed by studio E-ggs. Padded and upholstered, the chair was “conceived like a sofa” say Miniforms, who also describe it as having a “piquant personality”. It does give off zesty vibes. miniforms.com
Bosa cermics
Italian ceramics brand Bosa celebrated their 50th anniversary at Salone with a joyful range that would be at the front of the party’s conga line. Designed by Elena Salmistraro, they were inspired by the plant world and especially succulents. bosatrade.com
Doric
From Greek industrial designer John Kravaris was the Doric collection is – a series of seating and tables inspired by the structural logic and simplicity of ancient Greek Doric columns. The collection consists of a chair, stool, bench and tables that share a common modular system. Krv-designs.com
Blå Station
I remember this Swedish brand’s Able range of furniture catching my eye at Salone in 2024. This time around is was the Rutan range, and especially the way they employed that blue accent. The Rut range cleverly uses a modular slender steel leg base that the cushioning slabs rest on, allowing you to move, reconfigure and adapt seating requirements. blastation.com
TREND #4. DARK MATTER
Representing the weirder side of nature is dark matter – reported to make up 85% of all matter in the universe. Except no-one has actually seen this mysterious stuff or even really knows what it is. The design community are onto though and I did see a fair amount of black interior design, especially in blackened wood
Verce Studio
From Japanese duo Toshitaka Ando and Takuya Shiotsuki of Verce Studio is this striking high-backed chair made from chestnut wood. Chestnut wood is susceptible to insect damage, and embracing this imperfection, Verce Studio 3D scanned these pieces, using the damaged areas as clues to create a form that combines the curves of hardwood (natural) with digital (artificial). vercestudio.com
Clash
South African Interior design brand OKHA, headed up by Adam Court collaborated with Swedish makers of luxury rugs Henzel studio to create Clash, derived from Adam’s original drawings. The abstracted bracelet motif, represents his take on the energy of punk and youth and is hand-knotted in a mix of fibres. A limited edition, just 20 will be made. okha.com | henzelstudio.com
Fringe
Nigerian rooted, US born and Portuguese residing artist and sculptor Dozie Kanu’s debut collection for Knoll, infuses a current of contemporary culture into residential interiors. His approach is to take a typically static object and transform it into an animated console, coffee and side table. The tables’ steel rods contrast smooth taut leather and fringe tassels that give fleeting glimpses of objects underneath or adjacent. “A formal expression of exploration and desire,” is what Dozie calls it. knoll.com | doziekanu.com
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