Top 5 Salone del Mobile 2017

Salone del Mobile 2017 in Milano shows each year the future tendencies in art and design. This year we sent our interior design journalist Irina Belan to scout out some favorite trends there. She says:

Furniture brands in collaboration with fashion ones have really demonstrated the double power of creativity in design this year!

Wow, let us see then which were Irina’s top five design picks!

1. Surrealistic “Moschino kisses Gufram”

Iconic Italian furniture company Gufram presented “Moschino kisses Gufram” – a capsule collection consisting of three whimsical and surrealistic items. The pieces from the collection show a specific sense of humor which comes very close to irony and becomes an easily recognizable feature for both brands. The new collection includes:

The Zipper lips! Sofa – a play on the iconic Bocca lips sofa, where Moschino’s Creative Designer Jeremy Scott added a zipper
The Biker Cabinet – a cabinet revisiting the form of the well-known Moschino tromp l’oeil Biker bag
The High Heels – a pair of enormous black leather pumps which can be used as a bookshelf and an ottoman respectively.

We love Moschino’s playfulness and it makes Gufram’s collection much broader – it is the first time the furniture brand uses leather to produce a collection!

2. Playful Art for Textile Prints – NENDO for Jil Sander

The Japanese architectural and design bureau NENDO made the installation and textiles for Jil Sander. The minimalistic aesthetic of both companies matches perfectly! The collection consists of trainers, scarves, T-shirts and bags. Apart from it, Nendo has made the Objectextile, the range of fabrics where the patterns appear by photo shooting objects suspended inside cubes. The Japanese studio made and shot a different box for each design, using lighting, shadows and different shooting methods and angles to create patterns that feature contrasting shades of grey. For the striped print, for example, Nendo filled a cube with thin flat columns, arranged in a group, while the dot pattern was created by photographing 82 separate suspended balls.

3. Vanishing Blossoms – COS x Studio Swine

The intellectual Swedish brand COS in partnership with the London-based Studio Swine made an interactive installation – a tree which looks as if taken out from the Italian palazzo interiors. The tree produces bubbles/ blossoms, which disappear in contact with the skin but can be held by visitors with special gloves. Studio Swine says:

Inspired by the famous cherry blossom festival in Japan, the installation is designed to create a special moment that brings people together. A fleeting shared experience that evokes a sense of the changing seasons.

4. Santoni shoes x Toilet paper magazine

Santoni shoes are already famous for their long-lasting collaboration with the Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola. This year they have chosen to collaborate with two of the most provocative and ambiguous artists – Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari – founders of the cult magazine Toiletpaper. They have given the Italian classic shoe brand a little shade of the scandal by putting on their white leather trainers the ornaments of snakes from the garden of Eden.

5. Objet Nomades collection, Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton chose to collaborate this year with the three most luminous designers of our times. The first one is India Mahdavi who created a blue marquetry table made from leather.

This is a technique that you usually see done with wood,

says Mahdavi of the intricate leather marquetry on her tray table. Her side table is inspired by Middle Eastern nomadic hospitality and has the “benevolent eye” design.

The second LV collaboration is with Marcel Wanders – a lounge chair. A meticulously hand-crafted ‘Lune Chair’ pointing back to the traditional travel trunks. It has the golden metal bumper corner element as part of its support structure and is crafted with wood and leather that features the same matelassé cushioned textile pattern found inside the LV trunks.

Yet a third object is designed by the Brasilian designers Campana brothers – a Bomboca sofa, named after sweets served at parties in Brasil and means “very good”. Inspired by clouds and sea apples, the sofa is modular and consists of eight cushion in a rigid shell.