A week ago, the Salone del Mobile.Milano press conference took place in Milan, the signal that officially opens the season that is, at least for our industry, the busiest of the year.
Given that in recent months there have been news of major defections – such as Molteni, Baxter, Flexform – it was natural that the focus was on the ‘bright side’ of the event, which reported 148 new entries and returns, and that 59.4 percent of exhibitors (Italian and foreign) have been attending the event for at least ten years.
But something else has also emerged, almost under the radar: a rapprochement between the fair and the art world. First with the communication campaign shot by photographer Bill Durgin, in which the relationship between furniture and the human body becomes a mysterious performance. Then with the decision to bring forward the opening of Robert Wilson’s installation in dialogue with Michelangelo’s Pietà Rondanini to April 6, two days before the event begins. Wilson (who will also participate in the special conference on light organized as part of Euroluce) is not only a director and playwright, but also a versatile artist; and the day is the last of miart, a fair of modern and contemporary art, an event with increasing quotations.
It is like a desire to mark a closeness, not only of the calendar, but also, in a sense, of shared languages. The proximity (design as art) that underlies the phenomenon of collectible design. The same one that we find in Matter and Shape, a small fair event that takes place in Paris during the days of Fashion Week and that brings together a group of exhibitors who focus on a possible intersection between the worlds of art, fashion and design: among the names present so far on the event’s website we find cc-tapis, Vitra or Flos, alongside designers/producers of limited or unique pieces such as Natalia Criado and Marco Guazzini, the concept store Sanayi313 (Istanbul) or Shaha, a Lebanese collection of research fashion.
Still on the subject of fashion and design, also in Italy, the brand Visionnaire has chosen the Milan Fashion Week, which starts in a few days, to inaugurate its new showroom in the city.
This is not about clothing brands creating a ‘home’ line. It is something deeper and more complex. It could be the opening of new avenues that follow affinities of the soul rather than market categories. Connections that, taken together, define a new way of presenting oneself to the market. The creation of a series of intangible but winning added values: taste, style, personality.
