Milan design week draws global creatives and makers despite war and economic worries

Artist Maurizio Cattelan participates in the objects changing event 'Barter breakfast' in front of the Duomo gothic cathedral, in Milan, Italy, Monday, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

MILAN — Artist Maurizio Cattelan, the provocateur behind such works as a golden toilet titled “America,” opened MilanDesignWeek by inviting people for an informal exchange of favorite objects in front of Milan’s Duomo cathedral, where he stamped “White Trash” on participants’ necks and hands.

The mood in Milan was buoyant as guests moved from cocktail to cocktail in some of Milan’s most inviting venues on Monday before the doors of the Milan Furniture Fair opened Tuesday for the business of showing innovations in the most eclectic and energetic clash of events on the global design calendar.

Despite economic gloom and travel interruptions provoked by Mideast wars, 1,900 exhibitors from 32 countries showed their designs at the Fiera Milano Rho, while hundreds more events spilled out across the city for the ever-popular Fuorisalone.

“This week of design is so deep — an experience for all of us. I think we are a big community around the world, and I think at the end, we are a little bit all dreamers,″ said Spanish architect and designer Patricia Urquiola, one of Europe’s most celebrated luxury interior and furniture designers.

One of Urquiola’s collaborations included an installation inside a Milan luxury hotel for German porcelain fixture company Duravit, featuring totems created from toilets and bidets.

Salone highlights limited editions

The furniture fair added a new pavilion this year called “Raritas” for designers of limited edition pieces to complement the industrial production long given center stage.

“We wanted to have antiques, high handcraft and, of course, contemporary collectibles with limited edition and unique pieces, so to have the entire wide range of design at the Salone,” curator Annalisa Rosso said.

Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis presented a bubbling sculpture with air passing through a viscose liquid inside a standing polymer wall. Italian designer Francesco Faccin showed deceptively simple tables and chairs that appeared to be made out of planks of wood, inspired partly by the Shakers, but were actually bronze casts.

Saudi brand Zaza made its debut at Salone, demonstrating that the Gulf nation is not just a consumer of foreign-made products but also a creative resource. The brand showcased curved sculptures out of tinted stainless steel and a limited edition chair worthy of a sheikh.

“We are here to bring the Saudi story to the world,” designer and architect Abdulaziz Khalid Al Tayyash said. “We want to expand and tell a good story about how, from Saudi lifestyle and Saudi culture, we can bring something interesting to be in such a platform, like this one.”

Luxury fashion plays

Home design has become an important plank for many luxury fashion houses including Armani and Dolce & Gabbana. But even for those who haven’t entered the sector, design week is a mandatory appointment, with bubbly flowing.

Gucci invited guests to a tranquil garden planted with wildflowers inside a monastery. The courtyard walls were hung with tapestries telling the fashion house’s history, from Guccio Gucci’s start as a bellhop in London that inspired him to begin making leather travel bags in his native Florence, and tracing the maison’s creative course under designers Tom Ford, Frida Giannini, Alessandro Michele, Sabato Sarno and now Demna.

Louis Vuitton unveiled its latest housewares and furniture collection in a stately palazzo, showing off archival pieces including trunks for itinerant painters that segued into contemporary table settings, a wooden turntable stand shaped like a drill bit and a fantastical foosball table featuring mermaid players and eyeball handles.

Milan shows off design-scapes

In the courtyard of the historic Palazzo Litta, in the heart of the city, Paris-based Lebanese Lina Ghotmeh created a bright pink, wooden labyrinth meant to induce visitors to slow down, browse design books, take a seat and chat.

“As people move in this installation, you have this feeling of choreography and dance that is manifested, and you sit here and you’re just about watching people talk to each other. They become part of the setting and part of the theatricality of this place as well,” she said.

Piazza Gae Aulenti, among some of Milan’s most spectacular skyscrapers, Andrea Olivari created sculptures of the heart, stomach and brain with the subtitles: “Follow your heart, use your brain, trust your stomach.”

Design exhibits economic might

Italian design and furniture generates 2.3 per cent of GDP and represents more than 4 per cent of the national manufacturing footprint, making Italy a center for innovation.

The collision of design week with the furniture fair has become a premier global destination and critical platform for the many small and medium-size companies to reach buyers and markets, said Claudio Feltrin, president of FederlegnoArredo, the Italian association for Italian furniture making.

Underlining the sector’s strategic importance, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni opened the furniture fair, accompanied by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.

Italy’s furniture and design sector weathered the U.S. tariffs better than expected, posting 1.4 per cent growth last year to revenues of 52 billion euros (US$60.8 billion), 36 per cent generated through exports. But uncertainty due to wars in the Middle East, which are pushing up energy prices and hampering transport, is dampening forecasts for this year.

Global exports were down 9 per cent to nearly 1.6 billion euros (US$1.8 billion) in the first two months of the year, including a 20 per cent drop to the United States. If the conflict ends soon, Feltrin said the sector could recover as it did from last year’s tariffs.

Colleen Barry, The Associated Press