Stockholm Design Week 2025 (and Furniture Fair, of course)

My hometown Stockholm. And time to celebrate the biggest local design activity of the year. We have both the Furniture Fair and parallell to this we have Stockholm Design Week. Here is my report.

Did you think I would be all too negative about this week? Too critical? No, I will try to balance my critical comments. Giving critique is about trying to balance good things with bad. And of course there are both in Stockholm.

One of my initial good points for Stockholm is that the design week in the city is growing again. It was nice. A lot to see. And kind of a new way of doing things. At least four exhibitions were placed in people’s homes. And that is nice and cute. Kind of unaccessible, but nice. In general I met people in the streets talking about events and exhibitions off-off-the-beaten-track. I would meet people saying “Oh, did you see the new gallery/showroom designer Simon Klenell is opening this week?” FUN.

One hundred points for all these activities in the city. Also a lot of points for the stage at the fair with focus on the industry, plainly called Industry Talks. And some stands were nice.

But as an initial conversation about a critical point of view. When you go to the website of the fair (see it here), first sentence on the opening pages, claims that SFF is the leading platform for furniture and lighting design in Scandinavia. That is simply not true. Everyone realise that 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen is MUCH bigger. Much, much, much bigger. I would argue that even Helsinki fair Habitare might be bigger. SFF might mean that they are a bigger FAIR than for instance 3 Days of Design, but it is not a bigger platform.

And SFF was really, really small. Two halls. One million sponsored creative exhibitions, for instance Älvsjö Gård or like the one that Emma Olbers did on sustainability. I am not talking about the content now, just pointing out that there are very few commercial players at SFF.

And it was not a busy fair. The most generous comment was “you had time to talk to everyone”. Well…

There were many furniture pieces put straight on concrete floor. That is ok, but gives it a bit of a cheaper look. I also got a bit irritated that there weren’t clear distinctions between exhibitors. Here you see at least two exhibitors. Or three?

But again – more exhibitions at people’s homes. More in the city in general. Are we seeing a new way of displaying our products? I think it would be good.

Do I sound negative? I believe that Stockholm can and should host a design fair. People who participated gave the design week and SFF an 8 out of 10. Maybe not a lot of visitors but good enough. Personally I am cautiously optimistic. It will be better. It must. I give this a five out of ten.

Trends

My main job is to look at changes and trends. And of course I would like to pinpoint some things I saw during the week.

Details

The devil is in the details… I would say, beause of recession and not knowing where the whole industry is going, brands don’t really dare to go extravagant with new things. And that is totally fine. We don’t have to overproduce things just so we can look at it. So, maybe not a lot of new shapes this year but updated with details. Like this office chair at Ragnars (in the city). Look at the brass details.

I would say they same thing about the new chair by Andreas Engesvik for Fogia. Not a suprising new shape, but the details of the armrest etc is all nice.

Kind of the same thinking with the chair by Kengo Kuma for Gärsnäs. It is an archetypical chair but with a textile skirt.

Here chair Villhem by Borselius & Bernstrand. It is a typlical shape of an easy chair but with much focus on details. Look at the folded wood on the top of the chair.

Or this chair by Sami Kallio and Lisa Hilland.

These feet by Niklas Runesson are amazing.

Checkers and squares – and carpets

There were a lot of carpets in general. One can of course reason about WHY this happens now, but regardless we saw a lot of carpets.

Above picture from Svenskt Tenn and Vandra Rugs. I love these two brands, but I did not love this project. A lack of creativity…

Swedish brand Layered is getting more attention internationally and showed an exhibition of carpets they have done during the last ten years.

The only home installation I managed to see was the one by Tingstad and Insjön Väveri.

Swedish Teklan brough checkers to Johanson Design and Radici.

Two pictures from Dahl Agenturer. Lovely crafted squares.

And two carpets in general. Swedish Asplund made art collabs (here Ernst Billgren) and above swirly carpet by Viktor Erlandsson for Stoddard.

Other noteworthy projects

They say that you need three examples before you can call it a trend. Below are projects I think will be influential in one way or another but they come as singular projects. Maybe they will multiply next year and become a full on trend.

Swedish studio Front have played around with new technology before and at Nordiska Galleriet they made these “sculptures” with AI and 3D. If I remember correctly they actually call them ugly or scary.

Luca Nichetto looked at his Venetian heritage and mixed with Gio Ponti. This is inspirerd by a crystal chandelier and made into this nice and colourful lamp. For &Tradition. I would say heritage and culture is something that will be trending this year.

Room divider. This cabinet represents both a 70s styled piece (the dark wood, and the 70s in general is getting hyped)  but also an object by the busiest design studio this year – Studio Stockholm. I think they made pieces for EVERYONE this year. As a trend we can also see that furniture brands are more willing to take pieces into production by architects that actually already have a booking for these pieces. A guaranteed sale.

Speaking of heritage. Stolab relaunch this bistro chair by Yngve Ekström. Notice how the back of the chair is not too high so you can see the table setting clearly.

Sustainability is of course important in Sweden and in this industry. I like how Hyfer Objects made this delicate lamp made of recycled materials. The lamp is called Kakta.

Some of my favourites at the student or young designer selection at Greenhouse.

Here a chair from Malmsten student Oscar Andersson.

JP Lasco made this shelf

Finnish designer Simo Lahtinen made a pine chair that is super nice.

Design student from Vilnius Morta Vileikyte made this chair with strong attitude.

Not a student bit still kind of the same spirit – Jenny Nordberg made a series of furniture objects made of waste. This sofa made of accoustic panels was nice.

Absolutely not a trend – but super interesting. Finn Ahlgren together with named Jenny Nordberg and Fredrik Paulsen made a design magazine. Far away from glossy pages and instead mainly words. The aim was to raise the awareness of criticism in the design industry. And this is my favourite piece from the whole Stockholm Design Week and Stockholm Furniture Fair.