Milan Design Week 2023

Etro Home Interiors’ Brera showroom was transformed into a world of fuchsia and chartreuse in Marco De Vincenzoa’s first homewares collection for the brand. Visitors entered the cleverly lit enchanted hallway where forest wallpaper and a grass-like motif wrapped the space, extending from the ceiling to the walls and carpet. Hand knotted rugs, crockery, and bags were displayed in an emersion of pattern-on-pattern while mid-century inspired furniture pieces upholstered in a decorative jacquard were dotted throughout the space in a retro colour palette of charcoal, blue, chartreuse, and chocolate brown.

The most decadent exhibition by interior furnishing connoisseurs Artemest was L’Appartmento, a collaborative design project which saw the upper floor of a 1930s Milanese villa curated by six internationally renowned interior design studios. Although each room was independently designed, the shared source of Artemest’s artworks, furniture, lighting, and homewares – all crafted by Italian designers and artisans – ensured the spaces conversed with each other and juxtaposed modern design alongside the century’s old architecture.

Dimore Studio injected an historic villa with bodacious 80s glamour and a sexy-grunge nightclub aesthetic. Metallic hard surfaces, antiques, and modern pieces of furniture were presented alongside film artworks in spaces where layers of thick paint peeled from the walls and doorframes mimicked gilded wood in a juxtaposition against colour-blocked curations of furniture, upholstered in textures ranging from snakeskin to velvet.

In collaboration with Vago Supplies, Italian furniture design brand Edra unveiled their new Milan showroom inside Palazzo Durini Caproni di Taliedo and opened this exceptional building to the public for the first time. The palazzo’s courtyard housed their iconic lily and rose chairs, upholstered in rich red and crimson velvets, alongside side tables imitating shattered glass. Inside, a selection of chairs was displayed atop a mirrored catwalk in the showroom’s entrance hall, each one unique and constructed from materials including resin, rope, faux fur, and velvet. In the adjacent spaces were expansive modulars covered in white boucle, aquamarine velvet, diamantes, and the pièce de résistance – a purple and fuchsia shot-velvet sofa, braided and grounded to the floor.

A mainstay of the Fuorisalone programme, the 2023 edition of Alcova was held in an abandoned abattoir. Emerging designers showcased their works in the many rooms and courtyards onsite, engaging with the theme of sustainable design in captivating and experimental ways – from industrial design through to creative merchandising. The designers presented innovations including ‘leather’ crafted from recycled bricks, ‘local textiles’ made from only fibres, dyes, and methods of craftsmanship traditionally found in the area, and biopolymer textiles which change colour in response to dangerous levels of UV.

Gallerist Rossana Orlandi’s expansive space occupies multiple stories of an historic factory and includes a courtyard restaurant covered by grape vines, complete with colourful furniture and cuvettes which once held the fabrics and yarns of a famous local tie manufacturer. Showcasing creations from the creatively functional to the decoratively obscure, Rossana’s curation brings playful surrealism to the fore in a celebration of emerging artistic talents worldwide.

Kirkby Design collaborated with Studiopepe to create a serene display in the courtyard of a luxury hotel. Drops of sheer fabric coloured in an ombre of pink, green, blue, and yellow were hung above a vast reflection pond, blowing delicately in the breeze and interspersed by unfinished stone. In one of many exhibits incorporating the element of water as a play on metallic surfaces, the duo crafted shimmer and reflection without the use of plastic, evoking an ethereal atmosphere within the space.

Galerie Philia, purveyors of luxury interior furnishings, invited a group of established and emerging designers to contribute works to ‘Desacralized.’ Staged in a Milanese church that was deconsecrated in the late 18th-century, the designers were asked to create white-coloured works examining the concept of withdrawing religious significance and therefore rendering objects purely functional.

Zanat are a generational family business who handcraft wooden furniture pieces, preserving and promoting a UNESCO-listed technique which originated in their homeland of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The intimate and experiential exhibition was held in Milan’s Teatro Litta theatre and brought woodworking to life in both live performance art and film, celebrating their production processes and designer collaborations.