A Preview of the Milan Design Fair

The world's biggest design fair, the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, attracts industry insiders and just about everyone else

By Reena Jana

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Davos. Cannes. Milan. Each of these European cities has come to symbolize high-profile annual events that executives in the respective fields of business (Davos), film (Cannes), and design (Milan) mark on their calendars each year. From Apr. 18-23, Milan hosts the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, an enormous trade show of new furniture, lighting, and appliances.

It's where international companies such as Siemens showcase their newest innovations in kitchen electronics. And it's where up-and-coming product designers debut their freshest creations in satellite exhibitions and temporary displays all over the city. This year's edition promises to be the largest ever, set to include about 2,600 exhibitors, with more than 200,000 visitors attending from around the world.

"Design Week", as the days during the Salone are called, draws manufacturers who sign deals with hip designers and architects to create commercial, mass-produced chairs and tables, and retail buyers who decide what products they might sell in the coming year.

Increasingly, however, the fair also attracts those who aren't in the furniture business at all. Design strategists, for example, are catching on to the importance of attending the Salone. John Edson, president of the Bay Area's Lunar, known for product design such as HP printers and SanDisk flash drives, will be attending this year for the first time.

Creative Competition

In past years, Edson noticed that designers on Lunar's staff would arrange their trips to Europe to coordinate them with the Salone and Milan's Design Week. So this year, after visiting Lunar's new Munich office, Edson will head to Milan, to research what design trends he might apply to Lunar projects. He figures exposure to new types of design and inventive uses of materials might spark fresh ideas—even if he'll be looking at chandeliers and beds rather than PC peripherals.

"Working in Silicon Valley, we see the same kind of design problems to solve year after year. So we have what I'll call habits of design," Edson says.

"Creativity is about breaking patterns. It's important to see what's going on in terms of expression through design at fairs and exhibitions for inspiration. Plus I know there will be a lot to see in Milan during Design Week. There will be an effect of creativity competitiveness—I'll challenge myself to think in new ways."

What exactly makes the Milan fair so important? As Paola Antonelli, curator of design and architecture at New York's Museum of Modern Art, observes, design is a physical enterprise. So it's important for manufacturers, distributors, and buyers to see prototypes and other new objects in person to research and test them—just as the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas or the North American International Auto Show in Detroit are important destinations for executives in the technology and car industries.

At these gatherings, experts and the public alike can test-drive new products to see if they live up to their hype. In Milan, that means touching or sitting on a delicate chair by Dutch designer Marcel Wanders, made from crocheted doilies and dipped in epoxy to create a sturdy seat.

World's Largest

Milan's Design Week also offers the opportunity to preview competitors' wares and to analyze broad trends that will soon hit the marketplace. In this sense, Design Week is, as Antonelli says, "similar to Fashion Week in New York or Paris," when fashion designers debut clothes and accessories with stylish details that are sure to trickle down to mass-market audiences. Savvy retailers and manufacturers can gain early insight into upcoming market hits and misses.

The Salone del Mobile, which launched in 1961, certainly isn't the only furniture exhibition that draws global audiences. The International Furniture Fair in Cologne, Germany, held each January, and the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York each May are other popular destinations.

But they're much smaller—in January, Cologne had 1,300 exhibitors.