Milan Salone Del Mobile 2023 | Our Highlights

Milan Salone Del Mobile 2023

Our Highlights

A word from our_ Creative Director

Since 1961 Milan Design Week has been a global benchmark event for the design sector. Over the past couple decades the week has transcended furniture and product design and grown into a global platform for brands and studios like Hermés, Snarkitecture, Samsung, Lexus and many more to showcase their own design innovation and experiential activations.

Over the past eight years, I’ve been leading a team from our studio to take a few days out to visit some of the most progressive design thinking and production on show to playback to our brand partners. While the research gives us valuable insight into some of the macrotrends which feed our strategic and creative thinking across our work, the negroni sbagliatos help soften the blow to the feet after 30km+ of walking.

I hope you find following summary of our favourites helpful, but please give me a shout to hear more.

Moe Krimat

We saw a vibrant and varied Salone Del Mobile this year. Many exhibitions challenged topics affecting the design community today - sustainability and technology being prevalent across the city. This report brings you the best of what we saw and hopefully provides some inspiration and insights.

Stef Hacking_ Senior Designer

_01 Fashion

Loewe_

Loewe Chairs

Overview _Taking over Palazzo Isimbardi

Loewe exhibited a collection of chairs - which playfully celebrated craft. Each piece had a handwoven material layer which enveloped whilst juxtaposing against the piece of furniture

I really loved this one. The build was minimal, but the beautiful Palazzo alone created the ideal environment to appreciate the amazing craftsmanship applied to these pieces. The leather adorned Westonbirt Woodworks chairs were a personal favourite.

Joe Midgley_ Design Director

Image courtesy of Loewe

Fila_ Reading the F Box: The AI Experience

Overview _ 50 monitors lined the walls to create an immersive experience honouring half a century of Fila’s F-Box logo. Each screen projected artwork that was created by Artificial Intelligence by refashioning the Fila logo with historical events to document influences across American pop art.

Missoni_

Living Inside-Out

Overview _This year Missoni created a surreal space with playful forms that encouraged visitors to collapse into them. Installations were wrapped in Missoni’s historic fabrics whilst showcasing some of their new graphics. Given the playful nature of the forms it felt like an engaging way to interact with the designs.

Stone Island_ Liquid Crystal Heat Reactive

Overview _ Stone Island used this years Salone to unveil their Series 07 thermo-chromic technology. Between 15° and 31°C, the liquid crystals in the fabric triggered a reactive colour change. The two jackets were placed in front of pipes that were timed to blow hot air onto them showing the colour change. Set between LED screens, within a darkened room helped to add drama to the experience.

Hermés_ The Power of Fundamentals

Overview _This year, the staging had been stripped of all excess to display a framework composed of iron rods and concrete creating an interplay of grids and lines. The structure’s raw materiality created a striking contrast from the luxury Hermès home ware products on display.

“Hermés have been a constant powerhouse at Milan Design Week over the years. While the space appears toned down in comparison to previous years, conceptually it’s as strong as ever in communicating the individual and collective harmony across the collection through excellent lighting design and curated focus.”

Moe Krimat_ Strategic Creative Director

Timberland_

Future73 Visions

Overview _To celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Original Timberland® Boot, Timberland created an informative historic exhibition that then crescendoed in a visually striking Artificial Intelligence installation by Suzanne Oude Hengel. Hengel, a knit researcher, technician and designer was asked by Timberland to re imagine the brand’s iconic boot through their own lens of bold innovation.

Louis Vuitton_ Objet Nomades

Overview _The brand’s “Objets Nomades” collection, now encompassing around 60 pieces, introduced this year, 11 new designs. The star of the show was definitely the pavilion by Marc Fornes that was installed outdoors and set amongst the striking courtyard of the Palazzo Serbelloni. With info graphics explaining how it was built to inviting visitors at points to explore the structure within, it was a visually striking and engaging way to pass the time.

Freitag_ Always Beta, Never Waste

Overview _ The installation begins with the story of FREITAG’s birth and tells its approach toward the future. FREITAG is conducting research and working on the creation of the first circular truck tarps that, even after a long second life as bags, do not end up in the waste but return to circulation.

_02 Tech & Automotive

Kia_ Opposites United

Overview _‘Opposites United’ is based on five key design pillars, each of which were illustrated in a dedicated space as part of the exhibition: Bold for Nature, Joy for Reason, Power to Progress, Technology for Life, and Tension for Serenity. This amounted in 5 rooms of well produced, immersive digital experiences set to evoke feelings inspired by the five pillars.

“It was great to see the boundaries of digital production methods being pushed beyond passive content consumption and into a truly immersive world where digital design transformed and distorted the physical space in alignment with Kia’s conceptual narrative.”

Jess Bell_ Head of Projects & Production

Peugeot_ 9X8

Overview _The new graphic design of the PEUGEOT 9X8 Hypercar has been created in collaboration with the artist J. Demsky and was unveiled at the Milan Design Week. Not only a première of the PEUGEOT 9X8 Hypercar’s new livery, but the collaboration also offered a unique exhibition of a full graphic universe with the exclusive artistic signature of J. Demsky.

Google_

Shaped by Water

Overview _To celebrate water, a powerful muse for its latest hardware design, Google Design

Studio presented an immersive and intimate sensorial installation called ‘Shaped by Water’. Taking place in the vast Garage 21 space, the exhibition is co-created by Google’s vice president of Hardware Design, Ivy Ross, and the water, light, and sound artist Lachlan Turczan.

“The queue was well worth the wait to be guided by the Google Design team through a beautifully curated journey that kept you curious for more. We often see organic and digital aesthetics as two opposite extremes, it was great to see how nature can inspire future technology.”

Alex Burke_ Project Director

Samsung_ Bespoke Home, Bespoke Life.

Overview _This year’s booth centres on Samsung’s sustainability efforts while also spotlighting several new design collaborations. The booth includes exhibits from celebrated lifestyle designers Seungji Mun and Hosuk Jang, and demonstrates how Samsung enhances sustainability throughout the entire product lifecycle and improves consumers’ lifestyles through hyperconnectivity.

_03 Furniture & Product

Formafantasma_

Tacchini Flock

Overview _Reworked from the inside out, through a technique inspired by antique mattress production which replaces industrial foam with surplus sheep wool, four iconic upholstered seating options have been re imagined. The exhibition reveals the research conducted by Tacchini and Formfantasma to ensure comfort and respect of the original designs, while spearheading a new mode of fabrication that reflects contemporary environmental concerns.

La Prairie The Cobalt Room_

Sabine Marcelis

Overview _A collaboration between Swiss luxury house La Prairie and awarded designer Sabine Marcelis where the brand’s iconic cobalt blue takes central stage. The result is a dining space featuring Bauhaus-inspired pieces, characterized by clean lines and purity of forms, which would host a series of intimate dinners.

“It’s always great to see Sabine’s artistry and attention to detail when it comes to form and honouring a material. To see her collaborate with La Prairie and to celebrate their brand colour in such a refined and flawless way is testament to her as a designer.”

Stef Hacking_ Senior Designer

Byredo Bal D’Afrique_ Dozie Kanu

Overview _Collaborating with Byredo, multimedia artist Dozie Kanu created an exhibit that explored malleability of memory by using Byredo’s Bal d’Afrique perfume as it’s inspiration. The exhibition began with visitors applying the scent and then centred around an intriguing pavilion where intriguing pieces from Kanu’s archive, objects that tightrope between design and art, were displayed.

Dimore Studio_

Silence

Overview _ A collection of container-like structures hold beautifully designed Dimore interiors, which visitors viewed through windows or peep holes. Each interior was styled to look as though the inhabitant just left the room - bowls of half-eaten pasta, a recently stubbed cigarette, a dinner party in progress - and all were matched with an evocative soundscape and scent.

“Dimore studio’s exhibition within their new gallery space overpowered all the senses, by placing yourself in the rooms with powerful scents and music added to the eclectic atmosphere of each space, giving you a curated glimpse into each of their room sets.”

Jess Bell_ Head of Projects & Production

Noroo Group_ Mirage

Overview _ A colourful and immersive installation self styled as “dreamlike and rarefied as the visions of mirages”. Visitors entered through an atmospheric room of colourful totems to then be immersed within the next room of iridescent forms and reflective surfaces.

Solid Nature_ Beyond the Surface

Overview _This exhibition looked at celebrating the formation and quarrying of stone. It began within a courtyard showcasing works by artists and designers including the likes of Sabine Marcelies to then inviting visitors to enter a surreal portal of an impressive multi sensory experience.

“From the food presentation on entry playing with the natural light, to the onyx lit staircase and experiential crypt below - every space had a unique composition of contemporary materials and engineering to compliment the marbles - and every space set a different mood. ”

Andrew Quinn_ Design Director

IKEA_

Assembling the Future Together

Overview _Visitors were greeted with IKEA’s iconic products that shaped each decade of the brand’s history, which then led to the unveiling of new products that speak to IKEA’s vision for the future. The theatrical installations offered a glimpse of what life at home could look like in the years to come.

Re;Collective_ Re;code & Dekasegi

Overview _With the theme of “Upcycle”, and dreaming of a future under the slogan of ‘create meaningful changes together” 9 groups of designers from East Asia looked to promote sustainability in their respective fields within a range of different products.

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