Milan 2025

Milan Design Week 2025. The good, the bad and the mediocre. Here is a first report.

I am sure Internet is full of reports already. Milan Design Week is an important design event. Basically, the whole industry is here. And people are opinionated. You could describe this week as being amazing and fantastic with inspiring brands. Or you could hate it because the week is full of dullness, elitism and unnecessary things. Or you could be lukewarm and say that things were better before.

I hope you will find this report non-sponsored, honest, authentic and perhaps give you a good perspective and a complement to what others are saying.

Noone really knows how big the design week in Milan is. The only one who have some kind of overview is the actual fair and they say that they have 370 000 visitors and 2 300 brands. The city itself is full of scattered events. Some take place only one day, and some the whole week. Some of these events are for one brand, and some for many brands. Like Hermes is for just Hermes, while Alcova is for 50-60 brands/designers. And no one really knows how many people are in the city. We just know that it is full. No hotels anywhere. Could we guess that the number doubles compared to the fair? So, in total 370 000 + 370 000 people?

The fair say that they have 5 000 journalists registered. And that number should be pretty accurate. But how many PR-people are there? Noone knows.

Enough of introduction? No, just two more numbers…

I of course went to see the fair. And then the activities in the city. I had 122 exhibitions and events on my list. And I stayed five nights. So around 25 exhibitions/events per day. No. Saturday is arrival day so that is just getting to the city. And Thursday I left at 11.00 so nothings was open. I saw 122 things Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. That’s over 30 per day. And then they are all over a city like Milan. Traffic jams make it difficult to travel time efficient from let’s say 3pm. So, walking.

My other number is 34 000 steps. Per day.

I don’t think anyone sees everything. How do you select? Of course you want to see some important brands, some important designers, but most of all you want to be impressed and fall in love. I get asked “what was the best exhibition of the week?”. Almost impossible to answer but I think the Elle Deco exhibition was big and had a nice overview. But I also liked the exhibition by Jil Sanders and Thonet. And of course, the Anni Albers collection with Dedar. The list goes on.

Rossana Orlandi was good. Some relaunches from Italian classics were good like the chair by Vico Magistretti for Kettal and the table by Achille Castiglioni for Meritalia.

This year I am extra glad to have my group of international trend experts and we could bounce impressions, thoughts and what we likes. Thanks to our conversation I could select a bit better. And that is also a big part of doing the design week. We meet and talk about what we have seen and liked.

But was it a good design week? I try to be optimistic and say yes. I saw some really good things. And a sign of the times is that the week was extremely busy. And that is good. The whole design industry has been affected by recession.

I will talk more about shapes and colour in coming reports but there were some new styles or aesthetics. From my point of view, we have been doing the same for a while, and now we start to see changes. Which is interesting and something to talk about.

From a more critical point of view, the design week had some real lows. Yes, I am looking at you Range Rover (and possibly ASUS). The design week brought a lot of brands that wanted to be positively associated with design. But they just showed a shallow surface. Google made a terrible installation last year, and that was so bad, that noone went this year.

All the 122 exhibitions I have on my list have been coordinated with PR-agencies. It is strange. No, the Elle Décor exhibition was made without a PR-agency, but all the rest. And we talk very little about this force behind the brands. We talk about designers, companies, aesthetics – but should we also talk about PR-agencies? Are they good? Relevant? Bad? Why are they exempted from the conversation? Should they be seen as influencers and mark all their posts on social media as “sponsored post”. Yes, I am also looking at you Dezeen.

(Picture from Elisabetta at Italianbark)

More bad. One of the interesting things this year were the protests. Yes. And I love it. There were students protesting outside the Amazon installation. And Seletti made this ironic bar next to Bar Basso called Saloon del Mobile. And they also hade protesters in the city. Fun. I hope and things we will have more of this. Hopefully next year there will be more hands-on protesters. More, please. Otherwise, this week will be all about superficial design and no change.

More things I didn’t like. I am so over these apartment exhibitions. Messy and crowded. And yes, there were rediculous queues. A two hour line to get to Artemest?? Get out of here.

Messy and boring.

Speaking about change. Just the week before the MDW started there were conversations about the design week not including students. The week before it started there were conversations about “design gentrification”.

But I guess the negative feelings drown in “stuff”. We are bombarded with impressions, colours and shape so who cares about students onsite? Killing them with colours, instead of “kill them with kindness”.

Sustainability was gone this year. No surprise. We have seen the interest in sustainability drop. This year there were more lacquered surfaces, mixed materials and reintroduction of bad materials like fiberglass.

I think that one of the challenges for Milan Design Week is associated with the numbers. It is simply too big. Too many exhibitions. Too many people (the queues…). And too much fear of missing out. It is difficult to have a proper overview. I have tried… And my verdict is still that it was a pretty good week. Among the most positive things is that we have a new aesthetic, some protest and apparently some money in this industry. I am pretty hopeful.

Coming is a post of colours and one on form, design and other things.