TREND REPORT
We spotted these seven interior trends at Milan’s Salone del Mobile, the annual furniture fair that takes over the city with the industry’s latest offerings
1 CRAFTSMANSHIP
The association between luxury and craft has gathered pace in recent years, and it was evident in Milan. British designer Bethan Gray continued her collaboration with Italian company Editions Milano with a collection of ethereal lights hand-carved in arabescato marble, plus a table lamp and tableware in graphic black and white marble stripes. British company Established & Sons drew on Italian woodworking and glass-blowing traditions to produce the chair and light that formed part of its new collection. Another Brit brand Pinch, showed its new armoire, Elan, which employs marquetry on the outside and traditional woodworking techniques (in place of metal shelf supports) on the inside. Teaming up with Fornasetti and French super-designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, the Venice-based company WonderGlass experimented with faceted mirrors by Marcel Wanders, all utilising the brand’s hand-tooled leather.
2 WOVEN WONDERS
The trend for rattan and cane showed no sign of slowing down, with brands such as Yamakawa and the Lebanese designer Nada Debs showing intricate woven pieces, the latter using striking ombré effects to add bright colour. For Editions Milano, Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola showed how to give cane a modern twist, applying it to tables and bookshelves and teaming it with brushed metal and iridescent lacquer.
3 WELLNESS
Mindfulness and the healthy home was the key theme of the Wallpaper* Handmade exhibition, where a basin was not a basin but a “cleansing plinth” and a sort of upholstered cupboard was dubbed a “hugging column. Other exhibits included a therapeutic squeezing lamp and a reflexology wall. In the courtyard of the Pinacoteca de Brera art gallery, Panasonic marked its 100th anniversary by staging an immersive installation in the form of a giant water drop, inside which it employed its air-purification technology to supply what, it claimed, was the cleanest air in Milan.