Every spring, the city of Milan hosts the highly anticipated Salone del Mobile, the world’s largest furniture show–where thousands of design professionals and brands from around the globe come together to discover and unveil what’s new and next in the world of furniture and design.
It is at the Rho fairgrounds where some of the most iconic furniture brands set up innovative installations to introduce their latest designs. In addition to this bustling hub, the city is flooded with special exhibitions of all sizes, also known as Fourisalone (meaning “outside salone”), where local showrooms, shops and museums showcase their own elaborate designs along with the latest trends.
This year, we saw various themes and trends take shape like bold color combinations, functional, tech savvy designs and sophisticated and sustainable materials from marble to ceramic and to copper. Some of the standout exhibitions included Wallpaper Magazine‘s, Wallpaper* Handmade spectacle, which focused on food, drink, and entertaining, a “nod to the upcoming Milan Expo 2015 and its motto of ‘Feeding the Planet.’” Other memorable installations included British designer Max Lamb‘s, Exercises in Seating exhibition and Tom Dixon’s unconventional converted cinema space from where the new collection was showcased.
With so many innovative and exciting exhibitions and installations happening at once, it seemed nearly impossible to see all the excitement that the Salone had to offer in just one week. So, with that, we spoke to our founder and CEO, Michael Wilkov along with buyer, Gayla Dycus who just got back from Milan to get the lowdown on the best of Salone del Mobile 2015! Check out their favorite finds and trends you can expect to see this fall, below.
1. New Neutrals: Blue & Burgundy
Shades of blue and burgundy dominated the fair’s showrooms as the new neutral hues. Many showrooms featured large upholstery pieces in bold variations of these colors.
2. Bronze
Last year we saw less silver and chrome finishes and a strong comeback of metallics in gold, copper, and bronze finishes. For those of you who can’t get enough of the burnished metallic trend, we’ve got great news! It looks like bronze is here to stay.
Bronze also showed up in a warm pink-toned metal, commonly known as rose gold. Rose gold has become a popular trend in the fashion industry and we can certainly expect to see it becoming even more prevalent in the home as well. From rose gold hardware to side tables and lamps, the soft, feminine metallic was evident throughout many showrooms and often paired with pink and blue pastels, another trending color combination at the Salone.
3. Smart Furnishings
More and more designers and furniture brands are incorporating innovative engineering and technology into their products to create smart furnishings.
Naos, one of our favorite lines, integrates the concept of “movement” into all of its products. In fact this year, they introduced an extendible table featuring a mechanism that rotates to open the lateral extensions of the crystal top via remote control. (See short video below!)
Tonelli unveiled a clever cocktail table designed by Leonardi Marinelli that can charge your phone. We placed our devices on this sleek, smoked glass beauty, and voilà our phones were almost instantly restored by the table’s concealed induction battery charger. We were wowed, to say the least.
4. Marble & Ceramic
Calacatta and Carrara marble made a big comeback last year. While many dining, coffee, and side tables featured unique combinations of marble, wood and metal this year as well; beautifully engineered ceramic tops emerged as a brilliant, low maintenance alternative to marble. These materials share a strong resemblance but ceramic is resistant to scratches, stains, impacts, thermal shocks and chemicals. We’re always on the lookout for great, high quality design that works for everyday life. So, needless to say, we were pleased to see the widespread introduction of ceramic designed to resemble marble.
5. Multi-Purpose Design
Now more than ever, we are using furnishings for more than just one function and design brands are catching on. Cattelan Italia and Natuzzi Italia debuted multi-purpose cocktail tables that can be broken up or stacked to serve as shelving or used as side tables.
Natuzzi Italia introduced Long Beach, a modular sofa structure designed by Claudio Bellini which features completely integrated corner and wooden accessory furniture to increase the sofa model’s functionality as both a coffee table and low bookcase.
Another favorite find was Paleta by Leolux -a new modular sofa that offers low, adjustable cushions and sideboards in various sizes. Paleta is cleverly designed to integrate side tables and detachable trays into and outside of the sofa for maximum functionality.
Discover even more of our favorite finds on Pinterest in our Salone del Mobile 2015 board! Happy pinning!