Bold approaches – a trend at the 2022 Salone del Mobile in Milan

The 2022 Salone Internazionale del Mobile and the International Furnishing Accessories Exhibition in Milan narrated a different way of inhabiting the contemporary domestic space.

The Milan Furniture Fair (June 7 – June 12, Milan, Italy) is a furniture fair held annually in Milan. It is the largest trade fair of its kind in the world. The exhibition showcases the latest in furniture and design from countries around the world.

More than 262,000 attendees at the 60th edition of the 2022 Salone del Mobile Milano vouch for the event’s renewed catalytic power.

The 60th edition of the Salone del Mobile.Milano ended on Sunday 12 June, after the pandemic break. And it was a huge success! The design brands exhibiting numbered 2,175, 27% of them foreign, with 600 young designers. Attendance totaled 262,608 visitors in six days, from 173 countries, despite the almost complete absence of the Chinese and Russians who in 2019 accounted for more than 42,000 presences. 61% of buyers and operators in the sector came from abroad. The press was also extensively represented, with over 3,500 accredited journalists from around the world.

“This edition has confirmed the international scope of the event and the cohesion of the design community,” commented Maria Porro, President of the Salone del Mobile.Milano. “An important result that confirms the state of health and the value content of the Salone del Mobile, and it shows how teamwork across a whole sector and its creative and productive fabric can produce excellence, achieving great results even in the most complex moments. The ICE’s contribution has been precious and essential in its support in opening up new markets, with digital offerings that, this week as in previous months, have enabled us to get in touch with new countries.”

The design companies have put together complicated structures at the Salone del Mobile.Milano 2022 to best represent their characters and win over visitors to this 60th edition.

The Salone Internazionale del Mobile and the International Furnishing Accessories Exhibition showcased the very latest in contemporary living: a changed, different, comfortable, conscious and enthusiastic way of inhabiting our homes. The exhibiting companies at the Salone del Mobile.Milano were back after the pandemic-enforced halt, keen to celebrate the 60th edition, with complex, structured stands that represent all the identities and facets of the brands.

Ambitious, multi-faceted structures, multi-level, minimal and brightly coloured, extensive and open or curved and labyrinthine: at the Salone del Mobile immersive spaces come to life, showcasing the visions of the brands and all the latest ideas.

The design companies have come up with convivial and hospitable domestic spaces that translate the changes in contemporary living into objects and furnishing systems. Our homes are where we relax, we rest, we cook and we eat together, we work, we watch a film and we find a corner in which to settle down with a good book.

Areas and functions have become hybridised and furnishings are being adapted and reconfigured by the gestures of their users. Soft sofas, enveloping armchairs, multi-level rugs, dizzy-making shelving and monumental tables combine with plays of transparencies, shades, colours, solids and voids, and intersecting volumes: all the stories that the Salone narrates through the objects on display are a mix of comfort and character, of contemporary style and potential for customisation.

Many parts of the home are attributing new value to getting together, spontaneous places underpinned by the unique and original character of each space. Interiors and exteriors often meld, open air spaces become an integral part of the domestic world and nature makes its way into the living areas. With lots of plants, but also with furnishings boasting natural surfaces, green or cream-coloured marble, raw wood and fabrics, hand-crafted weaves and hyper-material textures.

Particular attention has been devoted to products that channel a sustainable and conscious approach to contemporary living; the furniture and fabrics that cover them are offered in versions made entirely from recycled materials, and the design of the objects is evidence of the direction the exhibiting companies at the Salone del Mobile. Milano 2022 are taking to optimise their production processes.

The need to make homes increasingly tailored to the tastes and habits of those who live in them is also catered to by sophisticated styling approaches favouring honest objects, where the soft, neutral, colours of the earth and natural materials characterise the spaces thanks to the accessories that populate the sets.

On the other hand, bold approaches are also a trend at the 2022 edition: the objects assert themselves in the domestic space with strong personalities, bright colours and unprecedented shapes – symptomatic of an increasing urge to bring into our homes elements that we consider representative of us, without compromising on the extremely high manufacturing quality that sets the exhibiting companies apart.

Playful (and unexpected) materials become the protagonists of entire mises en scenes: tables made entirely of glass, towering aluminium bookcases, big soft cushions and totally transparent walk-in wardrobes.

Huge spaces play host to all the companies’ new collections, filling the pavilions like a great citadel of design. Impregnable fortresses devoted to elegance, light-flooded open temples, lofts crammed with plants and lightweight vertical partitions and even dreamy living units, complete with every possible accessory.

 

There is a huge variety of displays and the installation methods underscore the brands’ identities, with changing planes and volumes, scenic backdrops and intimate, evocative atmospheres.

There’s no shortage of experimentation with hyper-contemporary vocabularies, some radical echoes and some extremely brave choices, along with lacquered surfaces, mirrors in all directions and signature lighting design.

The companies have, therefore, brought a multitude of proposals back with them to showcase at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile and the International Furnishing Accessories Exhibition, in the wake of the 2019 edition, and there are also a great many new products, finishes and exceptional collaborations between increasingly international brands and designers.