The Salone Mobile.Milano makes a Historic Comeback
If you are visiting the Salone del Mobile.Milano for the first time, which is very unlikely because the event has been ongoing for 60 long years, then you are bound to be overwhelmed. But even if you are not a first-timer, the sheer numbers and the scale, especially after two years of solitude, will surely stun you.
The doors are open on the 60th edition of Salone del Mobile.Milano, the outstanding showcase for quality, innovation and creativity in the furnishing sector and an unmissable event not just for professionals within the sector, abut equally ttracted by youth, of goods on offer and the packed programme of appointments and projects.
This 60th edition will initiate wonderful things and reaffirm the even greater importance of meeting, of discussion, of dialogue in real life than digitally, say the Salone organisers and when you are at the event, you truly believe in the power of real time communication, connecting people and products without the internet in between. On June 7, when Maria Porro, President of the Salone del Mobile.Milano, addressed the media, along with Marva Griffin Wilshire, the address was at once personal, direct and from the heart. For the Salone had become more like a habit for the Salone and some of the journalists, some of whom had been attending this event for over two decades.
The Salone and the way the Italian furniture and design industry reacted to the pandemic and tragedy therefore has been a lesson to learn from. Creating smaller versions of the Salone, as the challenges arose, the industry and the Salone supported each other and kept the design industry alive, though of course it was affected by the lack of travelling designers.
Thus, the Salone, this year, according to the organisers is (re)asserting itself as a global event, the linchpin of a virtuous system with its roots in Milan but projected throughout the world, generating quality, relationships, business opportunities and creative paths that reflect positively on all our lives (and homes).
And it is thus been observed, this Salone is filled with travelling designers and builders from outside milan, making this perhaps the most successful of Salone’s yet to come.
“We believe in a Salone that breaks down barriers, becoming a cultural bridge, welcoming everyone without distinction, in the name of ethical and responsible design. This approach is the only way the Salone can produce value, stoke renewed enthusiasm and produce an event that looks increasingly to the future. In this edition too, the Salone del Mobile is following its vocation and its original objective: to promote projects that improve the quality of living, of public and private spaces, making sense of innovation that has to be sustainable these days; to be a mediator and catalyst of knowledge and experiences and an accelerator of ecological transition. Everything at the fair will speak to this mission and to this responsibility,” said Maria Porro.
The 2022 edition is packed with people and projects: more than 200,000 m2 of net exhibition space and 2,175 exhibitors – including 600 SaloneSatellite designers – with foreign companies making up 27% of the total (excluding SaloneSatellite).