The Best Things We Saw at Milan Design Week 2023
Design’s biggest week has arrived in Milan, and the countless installations, exhibitions, events, and interventions around the city, including Salone del Mobile — the city’s anchor fair and the industry’s most important trade show — are showcasing the latest in design, from fancy furniture to innovative technology, reeditions, anniversary celebrations, and eye-opening, avant-garde fashion. The design world may finish off the night with a Negroni sbagliato at the place it was born: Bar Basso (by the way, did you check out our limited-edition collab?), but before having a nightcap, everyone from students to the biggest names in the industry descend on the city’s magnificent palazzos, expansive gardens, luxury boutiques, design showrooms, convention centers, and more to check out the overwhelming amount of things to see.
Highsnobiety lists some of the most interesting things we saw and experienced during Milan Design Week 2023, from Gaetano Pesce’s first handbags for Bottega Veneta, to Rooms Studio’s Palace of Rituals.
USM x The Skateroom by Claudia Comte
Charles-Antoine Bodson founded The Skateroom with the mission to empower underserved youth through selling limited edition artist skateboard decks whose proceeds go towards building safe skateparks, art programming, and education initiatives. The Skateroom partnered with the Swiss modular furniture design company USM – you’ve most likely seen their shelves – during Salone del Mobile to present a limited edition series of skateboard deck triptychs and black-and-white zig-zagged USM Haller series pieces designed by Swiss artist Claudia Comte. There are only 50 pieces of each style, and the collection will be used to fund a social project that benefits at-risk youth in Jordan via a social project with Seven Hills.
Byredo Bal d’Afrique by Dozie Kanu
Shortly after Virgil Abloh’s untimely death in 2021, Byredo founder Ben Gorham contacted their mutual friend Dozie Kanu, a young Nigerian-American artist and designer, and asked him to create an installation that evokes the feeling of powdery floral warmth of Bal d’Afrique, one of the luxury house’s most iconic fragrances. The result is an exploration of Africa through the eyes of a member of its diaspora. The Travis Scott-approved creative and the 2018 Hublot Design Prize winner presented his first architectural structure a 12-sided, cross-shaped space through which visitors can walk — at Spazio Maiocchi. The installation opens with a long vitrine of photos of Africans developed from discarded negatives acquired by the Saman Archive. Kanu’s design pieces, like lights made from washing machine drums and a red table adorned with leather fringe, sit and hang throughout the space, giving the viewer a look at Africa through Kanu’s eyes.
Capsule
If you’re visiting the Byredo Bal d’Afrique installation, explore Capsule Plaza, Salone del Mobile’s smaller, cooler, and younger sibling. The exhibition, also located in Spazio Maiocchi and curated by Capsule creative director Alessio Ascari and CLOUD founder Paul Cournet, includes several forward-thinking exhibits, including the silver, alien head-shaped Zenomorph Chair by Berlin-based creative studio Sucuk und Bratwurst for their product line Sucux, along with the latest Snarkitecture – the New York-based design firm founded by Daniel Arsham and Alex Mustonen – collection for the Italian furniture maker Gufram. Each piece starts out as a block of polyurethane foam that is meticulously sculpted by Gufram craftspeople before earning a coat of Guflac Ultra, a special paint by Gufram that makes the pieces weather-resistant. Swiss sneaker brand On partnered with Armature Globale to create a minimal glass box that taps into the technology and design behind the CloudTec family.
Rooms Studio Presents “Palace of Rituals”
Rooms Studio, the design firm founded by Nata Janberidze and Keti Toloraia, is one of the coolest things to come from Georgia since, well, Demna. Not only is the design-duo responsible for Tbilisi’s first design hotel, the ultra-hip Rooms Hotel, they also create furniture imbued with references from their Medieval Georgian and Soviet heritage. Rooms presented a site-specific installation and threw a dinner-turned-performance/party at Osteria del Treno featuring long tables decorated with Rooms Studio cups cast from aluminum. Two new pieces from the Rooms Dowry Series — metallic quilts stitched with female symbols like the rose, swan, and egg — hung from the walls. After dinner, the tables were cleared out of the way to make room for a dancing horse before legendary Italian DJ Alexander Robotnick hit the decks to continue the night.
Tim Walker for Tod’s at the Cavallerizze at Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci
To some, luxury means true craftsmanship, but unfortunately with the industrial capabilities and production costs, designer accessories crafted by hand are becoming rarer and rarer. Tod’s is one of the major luxury fashion houses that still prides itself on craftsmanship at its core, and to show just how important that is, it partnered with the famed British fashion photographer Tim Walker to create an exhibition that pays homage to the craftsmanship behind iconic Tod’s items like the Di Bag — it was inspired by Princess Diana — and the house’s signature Gommino loafer at the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci. Walker played with proportions to display a larger-than-life look at Tod’s through playful photos, films, demonstrations by Tod's craftspeople. “In this increasingly digital world, where so much is being created on an industrial scale by machines, the value of craftsmanship is increasingly precious,” said Walker in a release. “The people I met in the company and their experience was a real source of inspiration.”
Louis Vuitton Objets Nomades
Louis Vuitton’s Objets Nomades showed at the magnificent Palazzo Serbelloni, where designers like Marcel Wanders, Patricia Urquiola, and the Capana Brothers showed their newest pieces for Louis Vuitton. The standout this year was the curvilinear sofa and armchairs by Israeli design duo Raw-Edges. The minimal, yet striking living room sets add an element of sophistication to any room. Inspired by coral, Marc Fornes / THEVERYMANY erected a bulbous structure in the middle of the courtyard, composed of over 1,600 ridiculously thin aluminum sheets (some are just 1mm!).
Loewe Chairs
Loewe took over Palazzo Isimbardi to display a collection of chairs carefully constructed by the house’s skilled craftspeople. A bunch of mushrooms dot the center of the palazzo’s courtyard. Loewe presented wood stick chairs — 22 are antique — adorned with an array of materials from typical materials used by Loewe, like raffia and leather, to shearling, felt, and foil. The irreverent display serves as a nod to the irreverent aesthetic of the house, adding a bit of fun and flair to a mundane household object we use daily. Strips of yellow leather were carefully wrapped around the elements of a chair back, while colorful hues of shearling made for a cozy piece of seating. Raffia is weaved through the spindles of a chair back to give the seat a warm-weather feel. The house also introduced a collection of bags and accessories inspired by the materials used to craft the chairs. Unexpected and quirky, the chairs represent Loewe’s heritage of both craftsmanship and materiality.
Kartell x Inter
Kartell teamed up with Italian football club Inter Milan to collaborate on a limited edition reissue of its legendary cylinder-shaped Componibili storage units in the same shade of blue as Nerazzurri. “Through this collaboration, the Nerazzurri brand continues its expansion beyond the boundaries of sport and entertainment and deepens its involvement in the world of design,” said Inter chief revenue officer Luca Danovaro. “Inter and Kartell are both big players in a key moment for Milano and embody the values that have always characterized the city: ambition, creativity and innovation.” Introduced during the UEFA Champions League quarterfinal in the I M and Milano lounges at San Siro, the first set of 10 Componibili will be numbered, signed and auctioned on eBay, the team’s official E-commerce partner. Proceeds from the online auction will go towards UNICEF to benefit their relief efforts in Turkey and Syria.
Gaetano Pesce for Bottega Veneta: ‘Vieni a Vedere’ (Come and See)
With the countless green Bottega Veneta shopping bags spotted around Milan this Salone, one would think that the entire city shops there on a regular basis. Funnily enough, that wasn’t the case. Most were chocolate-filled gift bags that were given to guests after seeing Bottega’s latest collaboration with the New York-based Italian designer Gaetano Pesce. Following his show set for Spring/Summer 2023, Pesce dreamed up a cavernous “grotto” inside Bottega’s Montenapoleone store that leads visitors to two new creations by Pesce for Bottega Veneta—”My Dear Mountains,” featuring the house’s signature Intrecciato weave in green, and “My Dear Prairies” composed of seven hues green calf and lamb leathers that are carefully crocheted — the first bags ever designed by designer. “This is my first design of a bag and it is figurative — two mountains with a sunrise or a sunset behind. I wanted a bag with an optimistic view,” said Pesce in a release. “There is a capacity to realize anything at Bottega Veneta and this bag opens up a way to express future design. The design of the future has to be figurative and it has to communicate – such an object has to tell a story.”
Loro Piana: Apacheta by Cristián Mohaded
An “apacheta” is a pile of rocks in the Andes that served as a way of thanking and praising Pachamama, Quechua for Mother Earth. Loro Piana invited Argentinian artist and designer Cristián Mohaded to collaborate for a site-specific installation at its Cortile della Seta headquarters. Mohaded collected discarded wools from the house to create 12 apachetas colored with natural dyes that emulate the hues of the Andean landscape towering over the Loro Piana Interiors collection that Mohaded designed as a homage to the rock formations. Components of a sofa, a side table and coffee table, armchairs, and benches resemble rocks forming “apachetas” that double as ultra-chic furniture. Made with hand-chiseled Italian oak, and ceramic, covered in rich, soft materials like Alpaca Suri and wool — a proprietary blend known as “Incas,” pure raw cashmere, silk velvet, and vicuña, the rarest fiber in the world, which the house sources sustainably from Argentina. The natural colors and minimal shapes evoke a feeling of luxurious calm, giving new meaning to “quiet luxury,” fashion’s most overused trend of the moment.
Hermès
For its 2023 Salone del Mobile presentation, Hermès reintroduced one of its classic designs, updated by Jasper Morrison. The English industrial designer reinterpreted a 1931 Hermès chair with leather sheathing on the seat and back of the chair. Morrison slimmed down the legs of the chair and slightly adjusted its proportions, using glossy, glazed heritage leather created specifically for this contemporary revival. Pierre Charpin introduced a new line of rugs, defined by the brightly-colored graphic geometric shapes and made with the intricate Cordélie cording technique. Harri Koskinen showed the domed glass “Souffle d’Hermès” lamps, which work as both a tabletop sculpture and a functional desk lamp. The Ancelle d’Hermès armchair by Cecilie Manz signifies the prestige and power of Hermès through a solid wood frame and an orange and tan sheet of leather that serves as the chair’s seat and back.
Beyond the Surface by SolidNature and OMA
Crystal enthusiasts rejoice! Lines stretched around the block to see “Beyond the Surface.” Dutch materials company SolidNature partnered with OMA, the global architecture firm co-founded by Rem Koolhaas, for an immersive installation showcasing the materials offered by SolidNature. The two firms OMA’s Ellen Van Loon and Giulio Margheri designed the exhibition, situating it in the basement of Spazio Cernaia, a palazzo that comes with a gorgeous secret garden. Walk down the bold staircase made with eight varieties of onyx in a range of colors from a light pink to a deep blue and vibrant orange. A light showcases the grain of the stones formed over millions of years. See the beautiful and mesmerizing patterns of the rocks, and the possibilities that come with using them as a finish. Guests choose a crystal to take home—we picked a stick of selenite to access our intuition. After emerging into the garden, see the artwork made from SolidNature materials. The grand finale of the exhibition is Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis’s table and bar, artfully topped with a spread of plums, grapes, cheeses, nuts, bread, and more, arranged as a visual feast for the eyes — no eating the food here!
