My first time at Milan Design Week

I preempt my review of Milan Design Week by saying I didn’t actually visit Salone del Mobile. Instead I sought out the smaller, satellite exhibits of the Fuorisalone.?

So, whilst many criticise Milan Design Week as pretentious, elitist and stinking of bullsh*t, I found a mix of poetry and pride that was fragile and aspirational. Italy has a long history of design prowess and a rich furniture industry that continues to grow. In the UK we, in the most part, forgot how to manufacture a long time ago. I am envious of the Italians for how tightly they have kept hold of it.?

However, perhaps for this reason, if you are not Italian or not connected to the right people, you are never going to be part of the in-crowd. There was very little on show from Scandinavia or Western Europe despite their prolificacy for design. There was a little more from Korea and Japan, but barely.

The things that stuck with me....

1. Poetry

Particularly in the pieces at Movimento.

A spin off from Artefatto, Movimento is a platform to showcase emerging design talent from around the world. Sure, the design is more like art, but the requirement is that each piece must be replicable. Whilst I typically find high end ‘design’ like this difficult to justify, there was some manipulations of material, texture, colour and function that really stood out and got me excited purely for just being beautiful objects.?

2. Sustainability

There was no denying the theme across almost every exhibit. There were two chairs at Alcova that caught my attention. Peel by Prowl & M4 Factory and OTO by Alessandro Stabile and Martinelli Venezia Studio. The first an injection moulded industrially compostable hemp chair, built to last until it’s no longer needed and can be returned to the ground. The second a mono-material flat pack chair made entirely of recycled plastic and fully recyclable. Whilst there were plenty of one-off experimental examples of both approaches across the city, these two had been fully developed for mass manufacture which was exciting.?

3. Apocalypse.

Amongst the student work, a theme of disaster and downfall of society was woven through everything from Drop City to BASE. Perhaps the result of studying in the midst of a global pandemic, their was a sense of pessimism that made me reflect on my own relationship with design over the past 18 months. Whilst the sense of impending climate disaster is, at times, overwhelming, it cannot be our role as designers to bare the full weight of responsibility for this. Speculating on a dystopian future raises some interesting conversations. Conversations I have with my students every Thursday at the RCA, but for the most part it doesn’t do anything for the here and now except leave us even more fearful of what’s to come.

So, more than anything, Milan reminded me that our role as a designer is to bring beauty and joy to objects. To craft with passion and create with belief and positivity.

We walk a tightrope between the practical and the playful constantly pulled in two directions, designing to meet briefs, budgets and manufacturing constraints whilst striving to bring to our users an experience that is more than the mundane.

Let us not lose sight of our purpose.