Milan was, once again, a vibrant stage for design thanks to Design Week. As every year, in addition to the Salone del Mobile, the city lit up with installations, events, and an increasingly broad creative contamination, with a marked presence of non-sector brands such as fashion, beauty, food, and automotive. Brands like Glo, Lavazza, Aesop, KIA, or Audi, while not having a direct connection with furniture design, invest significant budgets to create spectacular and engaging installations, with the aim of capturing the attention of the general public. Precisely for this reason, IFDM wanted to capture the essence of this edition through five exemplary installations: Loro Piana, Ranieri, Michael Anastassiades, Saint Laurent, and the 6am collective. Projects that are very different from each other, from almost monumental dimensions to more intimate spaces, but all united by a depth of thought that goes far beyond the simple “immersive experience” in itself. Some, like 6am, surprised with the choice of an unusual location such as the former public showers of the Piscina Cozzi, while Anastassiades chose a place steeped in history, the foundation dedicated to the founders of Danese.
Loro Piana – La Prima Notte di Quiete – Cortile della Seta (Brera)
With “La Prima Notte di Quiete,” Loro Piana and Dimoremilano explored the power of design to evoke emotions, and to transform simple gestures—like a warm bath or an evening drink—into moments of extreme beauty, producing a deeply contemplative experience. The installation, set up in Loro Piana’s Cortile della Seta in Milan, combined reality and cinematic imagination, recreating a domestic environment of exquisite elegance. Dimoremilano’s furnishings, covered in Loro Piana fabrics, contributed to enhancing luxury and attention to detail, while artworks and vintage objects enriched the scene, producing a strongly contemplative experience.
Under the Volcano, Ranieri – former SNIA factory (Alcova)
Three contemporary projects between art, material and design (the rocks by Quayola, the sounds by Rodrigo D’Erasmo and the monoliths by Francesco Meda and David Lopez Quincoces) in the setting of a disused and dilapidated industrial space of great suggestion. Pure creativity and product (in this case glazed lava stone cladding) placed on the same level, in a confrontation from which both emerged enriched. A great example of how to speak visionary about design without being far from concreteness.
Michael Anastassiades – Jacqueline Vodoz and Bruno Danese Foundation
To present his new collection of modular luminaires, the Anglo-Cypriot designer chose a place steeped in history – the headquarters of the foundation named after the founders of the Danese brand, created in 1957 and a milestone in the history of Italian design – in a historic building full of charm. Each room had its own setting; the most striking was the tiny frescoed room that housed the Floor Mobile Chandelier, where this lamp/sculpture looked like a constellation in a sky full of stars.
Saint Laurent – Charlotte Perriand – Visconti Pavilion (Tortona Rocks)
Fashion/design cross-pollinations can range from furniture or accessory collections to pure communication events. The path chosen by Saint Laurent for this participation in Milano Design Week may belong to the latter category, but at what level! Anthony Vaccarello, the Maison’s designer, has curated the selection of four never-before-seen pieces (based on scale models or drawings), which will then be available in limited editions on a made-to-order basis. Displayed in a cavernous, bare space with an essential brick backdrop, these imposing and sumptuous pieces of furniture were like monuments. Thrilling.
6am – Two-Fold Silence – former public showers of Piscina Cozzi
The former public showers of Piscina Cozzi, a masterpiece from the 1930s, hosted “Two-Fold Silence,” the first solo exhibition by 6:AM, during Design Week 2025. 6:AM, a Milanese brand founded by Edoardo Pandolfo and Francesco Palù, works with glass, reinterpreting the Venetian tradition in a contemporary key. Each cabin of the former shower area presented vases, lamps, and sculptures, illuminated by the contrast between the travertine and the reflections of the glass. Among the exhibited pieces, the “▢” (quadrato) lamps stood out, an absolute novelty inspired by the Bauhaus and Malevich, which combined aesthetic rigor and minimalism.
by Ruben Modigliani & Giulia Guzzini
