It’s par for the course to return from Milan‘s Salone del Mobile feeling incredibly inspired, but also a little bit puffy and crumpled — even if you were smart enough to limit yourself to just a single negroni sbagliato at Bar Basso. Thankfully, this year’s edition offered some consolation for anyone who ended the furniture fair with a design hangover. Good news: puffy and crumpled is in vogue! Or at least, it is when it comes to 2025 furniture and lighting launches.
Sure enough, Erwan Bouroullec’s latest masterpiece is a sculptural Tyvek lighting fixture for Flos that mounts to a wall like a scrunched up sheet of paper rescued from the wastepaper basket and lit aglow. The design’s appeal lies in its inviting tactility — it is designed to be crushed and squeezed into new forms, then secured into place with a series of magnetic pucks that clamp onto a backing metal frame.
Otherwise, many furniture designers continued 2024’s emphasis on plump, swollen forms — reflected this year in everything from Johnston Marklee’s scalloped, ultra-cushy sofa to Faye Toogood’s latest seating for Tacchini inspired by sticks of room temp butter.
Below, we sort through our camera rolls to recap the major moments from Salone del Mobile 2025.
Euroluce
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The Paper Chase
A Noguchi paper lantern redux was underway across Salone del Mobile’s lighting exhibition, with many manufacturers exploring the transparent properties of paper. Vibia led the charge with a stand titled “Shaping Atmospheres” that showcased a range of promising prototypes, many of which experimented with thin pulp sheets to poetic effect. Midgard’s Loja light by Sebastian Herkner, Contardi’s Hat collection by Paola Navone and Santa & Cole’s oversized Tekiò Mayor by Anthony Dickens built on that momentum with their own paper-thin flair. The trend culminated in Erwan Bouroullec’s Maap fixture for Flos, which may technically be made of Tyvek, but which nevertheless resembles a scrunched-up sheet of foolscap.
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Playtime
While discussing his vision for Maap, Bouroullec stressed the importance of developing designs that promote hands-on interaction in an increasingly screen-based world. “Maap is a very strange project,” he said. “It’s defying technical drawings and rational explanation — which could be a mess. But in reality, it’s super easy to engage with. In today’s world, we have less and less opportunities to manipulate things. Kids who live in Paris may not even have the opportunity to dig a hole in the ground anymore, which is one important way of learning about life. So I made this as a way to show people how to engage again.”
Several other designers built on Bouroullec’s playful spirit. Martinelli Luce’s charming Grammoluce (a collaboration between Min Dong and Studio Habits) covers a glass bowl with an elastic Lycra cover. As someone places one — or all three — of the fixture’s accompanying glass spheres on this top lid, the fabric sags and the base lights up, with heavier orbs resulting in a brighter glow. Meanwhile, Davide Groppi unveiled track lighting modelled after a literal race track (Race of Lights), Ingo Maurer tucked a small surfer figurine inside of a wave-like glass tube (Nalum, designed by Sebastian Hepting), and Luceplan presented a bouquet of glowing stems (Posi, designed by Studio Umut Yamac). All four products elicited big smiles from onlookers.
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Retro Revivals
Meanwhile, the ongoing 1970s craze continued to inspire many manufacturer’s colour schemes — orange tones dominated, but the occasional pop of avocado green was also in the mix — as well as archival reissues of classic pieces. For its part, Marset reintroduced Lauro, a fun fixture with a snaking steel stem that first launched in 1973, as part of a wood-panelled booth that offered a stylish reimagining of a 1970s basement. Moving to the 1980s, Memphis fans were treated to a lost piece from the Sottsass archives: Hera, designed in 1982 and put into production by Artemide for the first time.
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Canadian Club
Of course, Milan is as much about creativity as it is about business, and conversations quickly drifted to the global political landscape. Indeed, at a Salone coffee reception for Canadian designers co-hosted by AZURE and the Interior Design Show, IDS director Will Sorrell joked that he was trying to avoid the three dreaded “T” words: “tariffs,” “trade,” and “Trump.” That said, Canadian brands cautious of losing American business appeared to be wasting no time courting new European clients. Vancouver brand A-N-D was a clear Euroluce standout, launching no less than three new collections that each demonstrated impressive versatility. For its part, Lambert & Fils branched out beyond its home base of Montreal to collaborate with Seoul’s Kwangho Lee on a geometric fixture treated with a shimmering enamel coating created using Korea’s traditional chilbo decoration technique. And, in another cross-border collaboration, Toronto designer Alessandro Munge launched the woodpecker-like Picchio light with Italy’s Contardi.
& even more…
SALONE
The furniture novelties at Salone del Mobile were plentiful – but, as ever, many brands were eager to tell you that their focus was on quality, not quantity. This being Milan, where every upholstery seam is a chef’s kiss, you couldn’t argue with them. Some of the best showings were continuations of fruitful collaborations first introduced last year. Faye Toogood once again shone at Tacchini, this time with her Bread and Butter seating and tables; Hannes Peer and Giampiero Tagliaferri presented new, impeccably tailored seating collections at Minotti. Patricia Urquiola was as prolific as ever, with new pieces at Glas Italia, Kettal and numerous other of her kindred spirits. Her Insula dining table at Kettal capitalized on a micro-trend — the tile-clad outdoor communal table — and made it more sensuous than ever. Big tables abounded also at Bonaldo, Porro and Royal Botania, all intimating at expansive lush courtyards the dreamy likes of which are inherent to Milan.
A.I. made an appearance, too: Kartell debuted an update of Philippe Starck’s A.I. chair of 2019 and presented the Lillybet by the Palombas, where A.I. was employed to generate the upholstery pattern. Elsewhere, the ’70s were in bloom again; just as that decade’s decadence permeated Euroluce, its influence could also be felt at Minotti, Acerbis and numerous other pavilions where shag rugs were balms to sore feet. Futurism and retro vibes — Salone had it all.
Here are some of the best scenes from the Rho fairgrounds’ furniture halls.
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Top Tables
Bonaldo reliably presents knockout, supersized tables and this year was no exception. Massive tables also caught our eye at Royal Botania and Porro, where they appeared in one of the season’s trendiest hues: a light, almost sea-foam green. But small and mighty versions also grabbed our attention, especially at Magis, where Pied-à-terre by BrogliatoTraverso animated the base with a whimsical piece of bricolage and Ronan Bouroullec brought brutalist concrete to the mix with his Ancora tables, an ode to Italian architects Pier Luigi Nervi and Angelo Mangiaroti. Patricia Urquiola’s chunky yet beautiful tables at Kettal, meanwhile, balanced heft with undeniably pretty colours. We’d take our seat at any of these.
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That 70s Vibe
Even without the faux fur underfoot, the offerings at numerous brands played on the slouchy, soft contours of the ’70s. Palettes hewed to browns, beiges and the occasional garnet (at Arflex). And why not? A glass of vino would be the perfect accompaniment to the laid-back countenance of these stylish sofa systems. Even at Acerbis, where Philippe Malouin created a more structured design — in fact, it compartmentalized distinct seats — the nubbly terracotta upholstery and cylindrical profile felt both retro and contemporary. The brand co-presented with MDF Italia, where Snohetta’s snaking sofa is still a standout. Faye Toogood’s collection for Tacchini, meanwhile, appealed to our need for home comforts; originally modelled from a slab of Cornish butter, the sofa exudes the UK designer’s penchant for the hand-crafted, the archetypal, the primordial. It also felt a bit ’70s — in the best way possible.
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Singular Delights
While it felt more sober than years past, Salone still brought out novelties that were memorable for their sheer playfulness. At Mattiazzi, the OTO console and bench by Studio OE and the MCA 1 ZONA rug by Annahita Kamali and Florian Böhm felt fresh and sophisticated. At Nanimarquina, Jaime Hayon provided much-needed levity with his Talk Talk rugs. And Living Divani sprung into the season with Superfrog, a chaise longue that stretches out Piero Lissoni’s iconic Frog chair for the company. Kartell also had a number of singular hits — its Lillybet chair by Ludovica and Roberto Palomba (with the A.I.-derived upholstery design) and Lepid, its minimalist sculpture of a bookcase by Patricia Urquiola.
INSTALLATIONS
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Good Reading Material
Of course, Salone’s impact extends far beyond the world of furniture, and this year that was more apparent than ever as the fair partnered with a group of creatives to envision installations spread across the city. The buzziest of these was “Library of Light,” a monumental pavilion by British designer Es Devlin, best known for envisioning the sets for stadium tours by Beyoncé and Adele. Working with a courtyard site outside the Pinacoteca di Brera museum, Devlin turned her attention to a quieter form of entertainment: libraries.
Explaining the thinking behind her concept, Devlin noted the importance of regular intellectual engagement. “A library is an opportunity to see what the world looks like from points of view that are not your own, and I think that is urgent right now,” she said. “As we are funneled ever-more repetitions of our own existing points of view, I think libraries — and the multiplicity of ideas that they offer — are becoming an emergency service.” Her design wrapped a circular stage in rounded, glowing shelves stocked with thousands of books. Meanwhile, a thin screen intersecting the storage unit displayed excerpts from the books featured — and illuminated fresh insights in the process.
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A Flair for the Dramatic
Granted, Es Devlin’s glowing library was just the first act of a multi-part theatrical experience. The drama continued at Milan’s Rondanini Pieta Museum, where stage director Robert Wilson choreographed a performance starring Michelangelo’s (unfinished) marble sculpture of the Virgin Mary. Again tapping into the spirit of Euroluce, he lit the statue with a series of colourful spotlights that synced up to the highs and lows of the medieval prayer “Stabat Mater,” which was being performed live by an orchestra. Dubbed “Mother,” the performance showcased Italy’s rich artistic history, emphasizing that, even during a contemporary design fair filled with cutting-edge trends, the past still deserves its place in the limelight.
Meanwhile, back at the Salone fairgrounds, Italian film director Paolo Sorrentino had constructed “La Dolce Attesa,” a sort of mini-amusement park ride dedicated to the idea of waiting. After an intriguing elevator ride, visitors were handed a ticket and led into an all-red room anchored by a kaleidoscopic sculpture. From there, they were instructed to take seat on one of the two large yellow lounge chairs at the far end of the room. These then began to move forward along a track, eventually passing by the room’s central sculpture to provide a glimpse of the oversized heart that sat inside. Once they had reached the other end of the room, guests then presented their ticket to a toll booth operator and were escorted out, disoriented but inspired. As we begin the long wait for next year’s edition of Salone del Mobile, the installation makes for a perfect summary of the 2025 Milan experience. As you strap in for the design fair’s wild ride each year, you never know what you might encounter — but it’s often something that makes your heart beat a little bit faster.
The post Salone del Mobile 2025 Recap: Highlights from Our Camera Roll appeared first on Azure Magazine.