Milan Design Week: the designers to follow inside and outside the fair

18 April 2023

The authentic added value of the Milan design week are the innovative ideas whose diffusion is possible thanks to the vision of the companies and their ability to choose the creatives in which to invest, to rely on to experiment with solutions in step with the times. Prestigious collections follow one another inside and outside the Salone del Mobile but, reading between the lines, there are also new lifestyles on show, new production approaches and a new aesthetic in which form is increasingly linked to the substance of the project. In this scenario, designers are the creative minds from which the idea arises. Each of them traces a path within the event whose stages are different but coherent. Here are a few that are worth following.

Formafantasma in balance between design and suggestion

Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Ferresin, aka Formafantasma, are two of the designers we have heard the most about in recent years. They are characterized by the ability to reconcile formal reflection and design concreteness, to raise issues for discussion, such as the approach to the environment, and pure beauty. During the design week they will curate the staging of the “Costellazioni” exhibition by Beppe Finossi inside Euroluce (on the cover), the Prada Frames symposium, the installation by Tacchini at the Spazio Maiocchi as well as presenting the new collection designed for CC- treadmill.

The welcoming elegance of Rikke Frost

Rising star of Danish design, Rikke Frost declines the characteristics of her school of origin in a personal key, softening and warming up the minimal and austere style that characterizes Scandinavian production. She is making herself known, in particular, for the collections designed for Carl Hansen & Son with which you will be present in Milan to tell about your iconic Sideways collection.

Elegance and materiality in Draga&Aurel‘s projects

The approach of Draga Obradovic and Aurel Basedow is crossed by the continuous dialogue between experimentation and concreteness.

Their journey through the design week reflects this ability to be concrete and dreamy since they will be present both in more experimental contexts such as the Rossana Orlandi and Nilufar galleries and in areas of high industrial prestige, such as the Salone del Mobile where they will present their collections for companies such as Baxter and Gallotti&Radice.

Marco Dessì declines comfort in a sophisticated key

In the search for the balance between comfort and elegance, Marco Dessì seems to have found the right design key to fully satisfy both needs.

In this edition of the Salone del Mobile he introduces, in particular, his new 520 armchair for Thonet in which the curvature of the wood, which historically characterizes the company’s production, is combined with a generous and welcoming textile padding.

Light through objects in the installation by Ron Gilad with Nemo

A hybridization of art and design, the Enlightenment exhibition was commissioned by the Nemo company to open a reflection on the themes of light and function through paradox and perception. He entrusts the task to the artist and designer Ron Gilad who has conceived a space for fun and design in which works of art and design dialogue with the visitor.

The summer breeze inspires Federica Biasi‘s outdoor collection by Gervasoni

The feeling of a delicate summer breeze that refreshes summer evenings inspires well-being and relaxation. And this is what the Brise collection designed by Federica Biasi for the Gervasoni outdoor catalog makes one think of. And like the breeze, Biasi’s style is also fresh and delicate but at the same time significant, with character. Art nuveau, floral and liberty style are the stylistic references of this collection, a tribute to twentieth-century elegance reinterpreted in a contemporary key.

Ludovica + Roberto Palomba design an urban microcosm

Entering a courtyard, finding yourself in a completely different context from the frenetic streets of the Milan design week. It happens with Outdoor Microcoscmos, the installation curated by Ludovica and Roberto Palomba for Talenti in the Chiostri dell’Umanitaria: a suggestive setting of the brand’s collections.

Including the new Karen collection, designed by the same studio. The name of the collection is a tribute to Karen Blixen, author of “Out of Africa”: the collection wants to celebrate craftsmanship but also the strength and beauty of Africa.

On the cover:

Andrea Bowers

Chandeliers of Interconnectedness (The world is so beautiful even as it burns; Quote used by permission of Terry Tempest Williams) 2022 “The world is so beautiful even as it burns”, copyright © 2019 by Terry Tempest Williams, from the book EROSION: ESSAYS OF UNDOING, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Used by permission of Br andt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc.

Courtesy the artist kaufmann repetto Milan / New York

Photo: Andrea Rossetti

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