Wow! What a trip…
Salone del Mobile 2012 was a feast of creativity at every corner – literally. Besides the yearly trade fair, held at the Fairgrounds in Rho, Milan also hosted the Fuori Salone (roughly translated to “outside the salon”) – a satellite gathering of exhibitions which spread from the centre of Milan to the Lambrate district and Zona Tortona area. This meant that everyone from hairdressers to shoe shops joined in by collaborating with designers to showcase chairs, mirrors, lamps and more within their own spaces. We were lucky enough to stay in the enviable Brera District right in the heart of the Fuori and therefore got to see a lot of these exhibitions on our very own doorstep.
The fair itself was trade focused on the days we attended and it was great to do meet and greets with a few reputable names within the furniture industry. It was also rather ego-boosting to see that ourselves, along with the rest of our South African counterparts in design, are very much on trend with our products and offerings. Getting to see predictions of what is still to come was both valuable and exciting. Most interesting to me was the approach of design to not only cater for obvious purposes but to to keep in mind the creature comforts we customise our products into serving.
Two of my best picks were the Decafe Lighting range from Raul Lauri (www.rlauri.com) and Casamania’s Collerette chair (www.casamania.it). Raul uses ground coffee as his base material for the Decafe lights – in his own words he finds it “gives a second life to ground coffee as a biodegradable and renewable material while taking advantage of its emotional aspects”. Best of all, with one flip of the light-switch you have the faintest smell of your favourite morning java wafting through the room.
Casamani’s Collerette Chair is not only comfortable and functional but great for those Autumn evenings when the temperature starts to drop earlier and earlier, or for those Sunday night movie watching marathons when a simple throw just won’t do. I’ll have one in every colour thank you…
Have a look at our Facebook page to view a few more images from our trip.
To summarise – Salone del Mobile 2012 as well as Fuori Salone provided a rich educational platform for us to open discussions well into the night between ourselves and those we met along the way. We have come back happily satiated and with a few exciting new products to present you with in the coming months. Watch this space…
Ciao,
Pierre and Tanyth