Milan Design Week sparks a dialogue between the worlds of fashion and furniture design
Milan Design Week, consisting of the official Salone del Mobile and the independent events that take place all over Milan collectively recognized as the fuori salone, is the most important annual event in the world of furniture design. This year’s special edition dubbed Supersalone was a five day fair in September that brought together artists and designers from all over the world, and saw some stellar presentations by fashion brands where fashion, furniture and design moved hand in hand. Here are our favourites.
Dior
Christian Dior was fond of the oval-backed medallion chair used by Louis the 16th and frequently featured them in his own boutiques and fashion shows. Now an iconic emblem of the maison, Dior commisioned 17 international designers and artists to reinterpret the medallion chairs. The reinventions included French interior architect Pierre Yovanovitch’s twin sculptural pieces in steel dubbed Monsieur and Madame Dior, India Mahadavi’s use of embroideries made with Indian craft techniques from Kashmir, Nendo’s minimalist Chaise Medaillon 3.0 made of glass is a single sheet just 3.0 mm thick, and Dutch artist Linde Freya Tangelder’s gray-coloured aluminium piece.
Rick Owens
At Rick Owens – Dialog with Emerging Italian Designers, an exhibition curated by Galerie Philia, the work of 8 young Italian designers ‘aesthetically questioned’ Owens’ brutalist furniture design which has endlessly inspired a generation of creatives. “My furniture is my couture,” said Rick Owens. ‘I’m using rare materials and artisans with specialized skills to create unique, one-of-a-kind objects.’
Stone Island
Stone Island’s Prototype Research Series are native limited editions consisting of garments in fabrics and treatments born from extentive research and experimentation processes. Past stone island research prototypes have been the ‘Lasering on Liquid Reflective Base’, ‘Garment Dyed Dyneema’, ‘Extreme contacting process on nylon base’ and ‘Manual Flocking on Nylon Metal Grid-Ovd’. The new Series 05 is the study of ‘Copper Nanotechnology On Raso’, was aimed at exploring the natural oxidation characteristics of copper in the atmospheric environment.
Hermès
Hermès presented its new home collections which included a collaboration with Bijoy Jain, the founder of Studio Mumbai. One of the resulting pieces is the new Sillage d’Hermès armchair, a generously proportioned seat with a wooden structure which has been encased with a unique blend of cellulose microfibers and handcrafted in Puglia, famed for its papier-mâché techniques.