What Milan Design Week Tells Us About How We Want to Live
Beatrice Lessi
Milan Design Week was booming this year — so much happening that I didn’t even make it to the city centre installations. Next year, I promise myself.
But here’s something worth knowing before you go: Milan Design Week is actually two separate experiences happening at the same time, and most people don’t realise this until they’re already there.
The first is Salone del Mobile, the international furniture fair held at the Fiera Milano exhibition centre in Rho, just outside the city. It’s enormous, organised, and overwhelming in the best possible way — halls upon halls of furniture, lighting, kitchens, and objects from brands big and small.
The second is Fuorisalone — literally “outside the Salone” — a sprawling collection of installations, pop-ups, and events that take over the streets, courtyards, and buildings of central Milan. The Brera district, the Tortona neighbourhood, hidden palazzos you’d walk past without a second glance the other 51 weeks of the year. These are free, unexpected, and often the most daring work of the week.
I chose the fair. And the fair delivered.
Here’s what’s shaping our homes right now:
🪨 Marble tops in every shade imaginable — not just white Carrara. Black, green, rust, blush. Marble is everywhere and it’s not leaving.
🌿 Nature moving inside — illuminated plants, indoor trees. The boundary between garden and living room is dissolving.
🛋️ Curves everywhere — goodbye square sofas and coffee tables. Everything is soft, rounded, almost huggable.
🔍 The kitchen as the heart of the home — open, dramatic, theatrical. Kitchens are no longer hidden.
🌹 Colour is back — deep reds, blush pinks, bold greens. The beige years are over.
📱 Technology hidden and invisible — exactly as it should be.
🪵 Stone, texture, tactile surfaces that beg to be touched. In a world of screens, people want to feel things.
🐆 Animals inspiring the whole aesthetic — prints, shapes, a kind of wild elegance threading through everything.
And the brands? Big names still reign — but watch the new names rising fast. Just like in fashion, the landscape is shifting. There are designers out there making extraordinary work who didn’t exist on your radar five years ago.
Bellissimo, questo Salone del Mobile. Already thinking about next year — and next time, I’m making it to the city centre too.
