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Milan is set for its most important week of the year — and it’s not fashion week. Officially starting next Tuesday, Milan Design Week is the world’s pre-eminent annual showcase of new design in furniture and interiors. Its foundation and hub is the Salone del Mobile trade fair, founded in 1961. Over the years since, the entire Lombardian capital has become the site of countless peripheral events, which are together bundled under that Milan Design Week umbrella.
If the 1960s was the decade during which Milan emerged as a global capital of furniture design, then it was the late ’70s and ’80s that saw the city establish itself as the equivalent in ready-to-wear. It did not take long for Italy’s pre-eminent fashion houses to spot the potential — and potential convenience — of expanding their endeavours from clothing and accessories to encompass home furnishings and interiors. Armani Casa was founded in 2000, and key Italian houses, including Fendi, Gucci, Dolce Gabbana, Versace, Roberto Cavalli and Prada now all offer either homeware, furniture, or both. Plenty of international houses have got in on the action, too.
Despite some gatekeeping in purist ‘design’ circles, fashion houses have long seen Milan Design Week as a key moment for amplifying their activities in both furniture and fashion. After all, last year’s Design Week saw Milan’s population swell by over 20 per cent, as more than 300,000 visitors from 181 countries — many of them influential industry professionals — landed in the city to check out the fair. For 2024, fashion will be as present as ever. While this year’s edition promises to be a little squeezed, as it (inconveniently) overlaps with the launch of the Venice Art Biennale, this has not deterred any house from showing up to showcase its design chops.
Here, we’ve curated four key fashion-centric highlights.
Gucci: Ancora meets Italian heritage
At Gucci, Sabato De Sarno has been keen from the outset to consider Milan’s broader heritage in design and art as he goes about stamping his mark on the house.
For his first Milan Design Week in the Gucci hotseat, De Sarno is presenting a new initiative under his Ancora moniker that will display five canonical Italian design pieces presented in a showcase designed by architect Guillermo Santomà. The launch and exhibition will take place in the house’s Via Monte Napoleone store, remaining on show throughout the week, after which the products will go on sale.
Jonathan Anderson: Double duty in design
Both at Loewe and JW Anderson, Jonathan Anderson has long leant into design and broader forms of craft to inform and ignite his work in fashion. Next Wednesday in Milan, the new-ish JW Anderson store on Via Sant’Andrea will host an exhibition shaped by the designer in partnership with Patrick Carroll. Anderson, who has been so busy with all the hullabaloo surrounding his designs for the new Luca Guadagnino movie Challengers, is due to be on the ground for this one.
Prada: Musings in Milan
Prada, being Prada, is not planning a straightforward display. Instead, for three days running Sunday through Tuesday, it will host the third edition of its symposium Prada Frames. This year’s edition is entitled ‘Being Home’ and takes place at the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum in Milan on Via Gesù.
Prada promises a series of “intimate conversations and thematic lectures”, presented by luminaries including Paola Antonelli, Alice Rawsthorn, Isabella Rossellini and Françoise Vergès. Entry is free (via registration online).
Sunnei: Eyes on the floor
Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo of Sunnei are focusing their Milan Design Week attentions on something those lucky enough to attend their most recent show will instantly recognise: the carpet.
In the show, the carpet played backdrop to the live-streamed inner monologue of their models. But next week, the 72-square-metre striped rug will take centre stage at an installation in the brand’s Via Privata Pietro Cironi HQ (free entry). The event anticipates the launch of an edition of (smaller) rugs, also created in collaboration with Cc-tapis, that will go on sale after the week has ended.
And that’s not all. Other key names hosting events include Cartier, Dolce Gabbana, Brioni, Zegna, Stone Island, Moncler, Antonio Marras, Hermès, MSGM, Loro Piana, Ralph Lauren, Balenciaga, Roberto Cavalli, Thom Browne, Loewe, La Double J, Versace, Miu Miu, Off-White, Woolrich, and of course, Armani. While not all of these brands actually produce furniture or homewares, every one of them understands that Milan — for next week at least — will host the highest concentration of design cognoscenti on the planet.
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