TRENDS
Sustainability
Office to Home
Materiality
Experiential Design
Usability
Sustainability once again took center stage at Milan Design Week 2025, reaffirming its place not just as a trend, but as a lasting feature in the future of design.
This year, there was a clear emphasis on circular design, with many products made from recycled, repurposed, and biodegradable materials. From decorative objects to functional furniture, designers made thoughtful, eco-conscious choices at every stage of the design process.
Beyond material use, many showcased pieces that were intentionally designed to be durable and timeless, reducing waste not only during production but throughout the product’s life cycle. The growing focus on recycling and upcycling, transforming items that once served a purpose into innovative and eye-catching designs, signals a positive shift in circularity. This is illustrated in how sustainable practices aren’t just presented but lead the conversation for the future of design.
Design Nation
Presented by the Design Singapore Council, Future Impact 3: DESIGN NATION was a three-part showcase that reflected on the past, celebrated the present, and imagined the future of design in Singapore. Curated by Tony Chambers, Maria Cristina Didero and Hunn Wai, the exhibition was a thoughtful curation of emerging talents alongside classic and historical designs from the past.
A highlight for our team was Supermama, Kintsugi 2.0. Kintsugi is the traditional art of repairing broken ceramics with lacquer mixed with gold, transforming cracks into shimmering veins that celebrate imperfection. Supermama reimagines Kintsugi for the modern age, extending it to objects with missing pieces by using gold-plated 3D-printing resin to reconstruct rather than merely repair. It blends sustainability and technology by bringing back a broken piece of ceramic rather than replacing it.
Layer
Layer celebrated its 10 year anniversary with an exhibition that showcase key projects from the past decade, alongside six objects that aim to address key global issues such as urban density, resource scarcity and climate resilience that humanity will face in the next 10 years.
Their ‘101010’ exhibition used traditional craft to present ‘provocative vision for the future’. Benjamin Hubert the designer addresses topics of sustainability and climate change, with solutions ranging from innovative proposals for food preservation to off-grid lighting solutions, all within the same exhibition.
One of the products showcased is a glass vessel called ‘Keep’ that can be used to preserve food and reduce waste. Sustainability is embedded throughout the show with its rain catching towers, its recycled material clothing for extreme climates, and its modular home for bees.
A notable shift in focus came from product use in the office, now to the home. With our living spaces continuing to evolve in response to modern lifestyles, the innovation of products for residential has been heightened.
We noticed the main purpose and function of many home products being showcased were created to enhance the day-to-day home experiences, from ‘fun’ teapots to bold patterns on bedding, a notable breakthrough from minimalism that has been present at previous years of Salone Del Milano.
Mediterranean interior styles were a key influence in a lot of designers’ and artists’ work, as we saw the sea being used as inspiration to ceramics, and white and orange being used as a popular colour choice for homeware.
From Office To Home
USM
USM reimagined its iconic modular systems for residential settings, showing how flexibility and personalisation can create timeless interiors that adapt as life changes.
The installation at Milan Design Show presented “Connected by Our Dreams”, an immersive experience, inviting viewers to explore the functional design and possibilities of a new material panel. Contrasting with the classic steel the panels are easily adaptable for a variety of spaces, with magnet features to make the assembling effortless in the comfort of your home. Its’ aesthetics, functionality, patterns and colours can be combined like ‘pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to form a cohesive whole or an eclectic mix.’
Encouraging us to rethink modularity, the lightweight and easily adjusted panels fits perfectly into the ‘office to home’ trend as the consumer can adapt it to their ideal set up.
Humanscale
Humanscale, the leading designers and manufacturers of ergonomic products introduced ‘Humanscale Living’, an exclusive collection that was designed to enhance an important aspect of contemporary home life. The latest collection was designed to improve work-from-home lifestyles, this included the Diffrient lounge chair, eFloat Quattro table, Sedeo stool and Freedom, Summa and Trea Task Lite chairs.
The collection takes a huge shift into the consumers home lifestyle by adapting it with furniture to help them work from the comfort of their own home. For remote and hybrid workers this gives them an opportunity to have stylish, but functional furniture giving them the ability to switch from work to rest whenever they want.
Marimekko’s ‘Slumber Party’
Using joyful, colourful, patterns and materials for pyjamas and bed themed installations, the exhibition was presented as a large bed area, with the collection alongside for display.
The aim of the exhibition was to portray that being in bed is ‘larger than life’ and the possibilities of things you can get done in bed are endless, from work to online shopping, to movies, to planning. The collection flaunts a range of pyjamas, sheets and other bedwear featured in a variety of bold patterns and colours to make the activities that go ahead in bed bold.
It is the epitome of home trends as it listens to the consumers’ deep desires of wanting a quieter setting for tasks but making it joyful and stylish.
Materiality
From cloth to cork to marble - no design was the same, all with a focus on sustainability. This year presented breath-taking pieces that looked rich in quality and elegance.
Designers celebrated the materials and all of their purposes with careful consideration and impeccable planning on choices and processes. A popular choice of material this year was locally sourced Italian marble, as artists noted it had become ‘lost in translation’ as a material.
Capsule Collection
Capsule Plaza returned for its third edition this year for Milan Design Week 2025, taking place inside an industrial cathedral.
The exhibition featured around 17 brands, all presenting their furniture, which was the only aspect they had in common, as their designs were all so unique to them
The showcases featured a range of materials, wood, metals, ceramics, with varying techniques of manufacturing.
A-Poc Able Issey Miyake X Atelier Oi
This line showcased an experimentation with new technologies and craft techniques to highlight “the limitless potential of a piece of cloth” and portrayed that fabric holds ‘infinite possibilities’.
The O Series includes portable lighting wrapped in pleated cloths that gently diffuses light. It is what these lamps are made of that makes them so unique; they are made of meticulously pleated recycled polyester, informed by “the beauty and delicacy” of petals, arranged around an oval wire frame engineered by Atelier Oï.
To create the portable lighting, the team used A-Poc Able’s steam stretch technique, which applies heat and steam to flat textiles to transform them into intricate three-dimensional pleated structures. Each element is detachable and can be laid flat and stored when not in use.
The thought behind the material and the method of how they constructed it into the final project highlights clever innovation.
Roots Exhibition
This exhibition, ‘The Last Summer, from a different perspective’, put together by a group of Dutch Artists, brought an eco-activist handprint, exploring material cycles, sustainability and the deep connection between humans and nature.
Some materials used in the products of this exhibition were earth rubbings, potato starch, chamomile and PHA, derived from microbes. From all these biodegradable and eco-friendly materials, magnificent products like pixel lamps, blankets, and high-quality tableware have been created.
Experiential design is all about pushing boundaries and making the receiver double take and really think about what they are looking at.
The experiential designs witnessed at Salone Del Mobile 2025 told a story and had much deeper meaning behind it. The Roots exhibition played with material experimentation, while the ASUS X Dezeen exhibition applied sensory experimentation. Milan was not short of choice when it came to seeing something that was aiming to question the norm.
Range Rover
For Milan 2025 Design Week, Range Rover put on a full immersive experience, starting at a Wes Anderston inspiration ticket office, to entering a time machine back to the 1970s Range Rover dealership, and ending the performance in the future of design.
During the theatrical experience, viewers were surrounded by key design pieces as well as the original Range Rover – a true reflection in time. To stick to their ‘modern luxury’ ethos, Range Rover has become hybrid in every colour and model, giving choice to all consumers.
Delta Lights
A highlight for many was the Delta Lights exhibition, which included ‘Components of Space’. With the use of interwoven ventilation shafts taking over the square of Palazzo Litta, it was a must see in Milan.
Through a combination of light and sound, Delta defined the historic space for an entire week and offered a sensory and interactive journey that was on brand with their expertise in architectural lighting solutions.
Delta Lights have always applied useability into their consumer-centric products, and they portrayed it clearly with a display of bespoke lighting options for the consumer in mind, to immerse themselves with and presented with a twist.
User-centred design took a meaningful spotlight, with a clear focus on creating with purpose and accessibility in mind. This year, designers moved beyond aesthetics to truly consider how people interact with the objects and spaces around them. Artists put their uses at the forefront of their mind this year with some incredible designs to elevate peoples’ lives.
Singaporean designers excelled in usability this year, with products like bags for less abled users, to a device that eases the load off doctors and nurses. The ‘design for purpose’ theme was prominent this year in highlighting how technology is pushing us into the future, certainly ahead of our time.
Wishbone Bag
Featured in Design Nation and created by Claudis Poh, this high-performance solution is designed ‘by a person, for a person’. Its modular wishbone straps contour naturally around the torso, providing a secure fit, regardless of the accessibility of the user using it. The detachable harness connects to the main body via a slide magnetic buckle capable of supporting up to 30kg, ensuring both durability and use.
Engineered for one hand access and adaptable for an individual’s manner of walking, it completely rethinks accessibility within the fashion industry. With a target audience in mind, the Wishbone Bag is suited for a consumer’s individual needs.
Mosca Partners
There were many great pieces of design within the Mosca Partners exhibition, but the piece that stood out the most was the bright yellow sofa. First impressions were the bold colour, but once delving into the meaning and details, the sofa was embedded with braille. Yellow is the last colour someone sees before becoming visually impaired, which is a polite link to its consumer and user centric focus.
Amongst the sofa, other pieces within the collection were side tables, armchairs, chairs, stools, ottomans and screen room dividers, all united with the brand focus on craftsmanship, heritage and modern aesthetics.
Digital Twin for A&E
Featured in Design Nation, the digital twin allows new care models and workflows to be tested in a digital ‘sandbox’ simulation without affecting day-to-day operations. Practitioners are able to test new models of care using historical and future trend data against multiple scenarios in a safe environment- allowing them to find the sweet spot between people, space, workflow and activities.
Improving the day-to-day experience for both patients and healthcare workers, the digital system is made for humans to help improve lives within its main function. and that brings great usability.
