Last year, fashion’s presence at Salone del Mobile, Milan’s annual design fair, seemed to reach a fever pitch. Nearly every luxury brand you could think of, from MCM to Miu Miu, hosted some sort of activation or event, prompting many to wonder if Salone was the new Fashion Week. This year, instead of sleeping Thom Browne models, The Row quietly introduced bed sheets and blankets. But fashion’s presence was much smaller, probably due to the fact that so many luxury brands are currently between creative directors. Still, the usual suspects turned out—including Gucci, Loewe, Louis Vuitton, and Loro Piana, among many others—showing off designs that any admirer of beauty would die to have in their home. Below are some highlights that surprised and delighted me—and made me even more excited about what next year might bring.
Gucci
Like many brands, Gucci is currently between designers: Sabato De Sarno stepped down in February, and Balenciaga’s Demna will start as the new artistic director this summer. So it makes sense that for Salone this year, the house returned to its roots with “Bamboo Encounters,” an exhibition inspired by its iconic bamboo bag handles, which Gucci first introduced in 1947. A diverse group of designers and artists from Palestine, Austria, France, Mumbai, and Italy, among other countries around the world, were invited to create works using the material in new and unexpected ways. Some juxtaposed bamboo with more modern materials like resin and aluminum, while others created objects like baskets and lights. A personal favorite was the bamboo kites by Kite Club, a Dutch design collective, which swayed in the wind in the peaceful gardens of Chiostri di San Simpliciano.
Saint Laurent
It’s always exciting to see a fashion brand make the most of its ample resources. This season for Salone, Saint Laurent designer Anthony Vaccarello went through Charlotte Perriand’s archives and selected four of her designs made between 1943 and 1967 to reproduce and reissue as limited editions. Yves Saint Laurent was a collector of Perriand’s pieces, and the ones chosen by Vaccarello—including a five-seat sofa, a bookcase, a wooden coffee table inspired by a mille-feuille, and a chrome and leather armchair—have only ever existed as prototypes or sketches.
The bookcase, the coffee table, and the armchairs were all designed for Perriand’s own homes, and the sofa for the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Paris.
Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton has a long history of object design, from its famous trunks to its Objets Nomades series, its design arm launched in 2012. This year, the brand took things one step further by launching a full-fledged home collection, including furniture, lighting, decorative objects, textiles, tableware, and games. The Signature Collection of furniture includes a Patrick Jouin–designed leather armchair that’s nestled within zippered leather cladding and accessorized with a golden padlock, like a travel trunk.
Wool and cashmere throws and cushions were also inspired by Charlotte Perriand, and tableware references Futurist designer Fortunato Depero. The most whimsical object is a pinball machine inspired by the world of Pharrell Williams, the brand’s men’s creative director.
Maison Christofle x Charlotte Chesnais
When it comes to fancy silverware, Christofle is the crème de la crème. Founded in 1830, the French brand is known for its high-quality silver plating and solid silver products, especially its egg-shaped cutlery set. For Salone, Christofle engaged in a rare and fitting collaboration with the French jewelry designer Charlotte Chesnais, whose sculptural, organic shapes offer a modern perspective.
The result is “Carrousel,” a 24-piece cutlery set in both silver and two-toned 18-karat gold and silver, which took three years to develop. It’s housed in a stunning apple-shaped vessel, and will be available for purchase in September. It’s so pleasing, you might want to wear one of the spoons around your neck.
Loro Piana
I’ve visited the Loro Piana headquarters in Milan many times, but it was rendered unrecognizable during Salone this year. In collaboration with the Italian furniture manufacturer Dimoremilano, the brand ushered guests into the space for a brief but dramatic performance titled La Prima Notte di Quiete. All the lights were turned off, so you entered in the dark through thick, red velvet curtains.
One by one, various tableaus of rooms inspired by the 1970s and 1980s were illuminated throughout the space. First, a bedroom, with sheets undone. Next, a bubbling bath, followed by a sunken living room, an opulent dining room, and an entryway. An eerie soundtrack of rain, crashing plates, and slamming doors played over loudspeakers, making you feel like you were in the middle of a movie with no human actors. The furniture was the main character.
Loewe
How many ways can you render a teapot? A lot, apparently. For Salone, Loewe commissioned 25 internationally renowned artists to artfully reinterpret the quotidian household object. Results varied, some recognizable only by the faint hint of a handle and spout. Takayuki Sakiyama’s teapot, for example, looked like a Mister Softee swirl, spiraling upward from a continuous piece of clay. Some stretched horizontally, while others extended vertically; some were left unglazed or adorned with woven leather; some were exaggerated, with bright colors and textures; others were more minimalist. Some even looked like animals. Although only a select few could be purchased, Loewe created a special edition Earl Grey tea candle for the occasion.
Prada
You can always count on Prada to activate your mind, whether it’s during Fashion Week or Salone del Mobile. Every spring, the brand hosts a symposium with a new theme curated by the design and research studio Formafantasma. This year, for the fourth annual Prada Frames, the subject was infrastructure as a design system. Titled “In Transit,” talks were held in Padiglione Reale, a historic waiting area for Italian royalty and heads of state within Milan’s Central Station, which is not usually open to the public. The talk I attended was on “hidden systems” dictating our lives, like refrigeration systems, or the “cold chain,” as author and speaker Nicola Twilley described it. While the talk was intellectually stimulating, the highlight was a tour of the Arlecchino train parked outside. Designed by Gio Ponti and Giulio Minoletti in the 1950s, it was recently restored by the Fondazione FS Italiane for trips between Milan and Rome. All aboard!
Miu Miu
Like Prada, Miu Miu hosts more intimate discussions with female writers and authors every Salone as part of its Literary Club. This year, the goal was to explore the subjects of girlhood, love, and sex education through the works of the French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir and the Japanese author Fumi Ueda. The panel I attended was a thoughtful conversation moderated by writer and curator Lou Stoppard between the French-American writer Lauren Elkin, who translated The Inseparables by de Beauvoir, the Indian-born novelist and short story writer Geetanjali Shree, who won the International Booker Prize in 2022, and the Italian novelist Veronica Raimo. Each spoke about discovering de Beauvoir’s work as young women and how it shaped them. It made me want to pick up a free copy of the author’s book to read in the Miu Miu lounge afterward.
Kai Isaiah Jama, Nicola Dinan, Naoise Dolan, and Sarah Manguso at Miu Miu’s Literary Club event
Courtesy of Miu Miu
Dior
When you think of Dior, you think of florals, so for Salone, it was only fitting that the brand presented three glass vases by the French artist Sam Baron as an extension of the house’s Ode à la Nature collection. Handcrafted with Italian mouth-blown glass, each one depicts a different cycle of life, from first bloom to a tamed arrangement. The vase shapes echo the silhouette of the first iconic Miss Dior perfume bottle from 1947, and only eight limited editions were produced—a nod to Monsieur Dior’s lucky number.
Hermès
This year, Hermès did a more pared-down exhibition, but it still packed a punch. With a focus on glass, the brand explored different techniques, from mouth-blown to fused in the form of vases, jugs, and boxes featuring vibrant colors and varying transparencies. They also introduced new leather baskets and throws to match.
The Row
The most whispered-about event at Salone this year was the launch of The Row’s home collection, which was revealed quietly, in typical Olsen twin style, with a very exclusive cocktail party at Palazzo Belgioioso. Now that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have perfected the T-shirt—their goal when they launched their brand back in 2006—and then some, they seem to now feel confident producing the perfect “basic” products for your home, including cashmere blankets and throws, quilted sheets and pillowcases, in the brand’s signature muted tones of ivory, black, and mink.
Of course, despite their minimalist appearance, there is nothing basic about these products. It took years of researching and sampling to get the results just right. The cashmere for the blankets was sourced from the bellies of baby Kashmir Valley goats and crafted by female artisans by hand with a traditional 12-step process. Each piece could take anywhere from 160 to 300 hours to spin on a traditional loom, plus an additional 300 hours to hand-weave. If you want to sleep like the Olsens—the ultimate luxury, if you ask me—whatever you do, just don’t drink your Starbucks coffee in bed.