Elishua Bachor.
And just like that, another Milan Design Week comes to an end. This year, the Lombard capital turned itself inside out, with Salone del Mobile 2026 landing like an urban experiment that finally stopped pretending to be a furniture fair. While the Rho Fiera fairgrounds tracked the evolution of the kitchen, the real energy lived in the streets, where heritage houses and independent disruptors treated the pavement as an open-source laboratory.
Hermès reconfigured urban spaces with palladium-plated metal and leather accents, while Bottega Veneta turned its stores into light-filled sculptures of woven leather alongside Korean artist Kwangho Lee. Saint Laurent collaborated with the Gio Ponti archive to resurrect iconic 1950s tableware, showing that looking back can be as radical as any new technology. Schön! navigated the madness to find the moments where the boundary between a domestic object and a wild idea completely dissolved, tracking a new landscape defined by everything from seafaring carbon fibre to AI-generated poetry.
Nike.
Nike.
Nike took over the railway tunnels at Dropcity to establish the NikeAir_Lab. Global designers gathered to view prototypes like ‘Air Liquid Max’ and ‘FlyWeb’ while exploring the history of the brand’s obsession with air. Aerospace engineer Frank Rudy saw his early experiments displayed for the first time. Movement played a central role as trainer Joe Holder led sessions on inflatable seating created with Naked Space. Visitors used the eight tool stations in the lab to manipulate properties of air through suctioning and blasting. Beyond the physical space, the house released ‘A Manual for Living’ alongside a public version of the ‘Nike Design Annual.’ The week concluded with a refreshing shift in perspective thanks to panel discussions featuring fashion designer Hiroshi Fujiwara and architect Paola Antonelli.
Philippe Garcia.
Baccarat.
At the other end of the aesthetic spectrum, artist Emmanuelle Luciani imagined Baccarat in the year 5300 through an installation titled ‘Crystal Crypt.’ Sci-fi aesthetics informed the atmosphere where crystal became a medium to reveal the invisible. A film and sound piece accompanied choreography that paid homage to the physical work of glassmaking. Bethan Laura Wood’s ‘Mille Fleurs’ chandelier anchored the vision, deconstructing the classic Zénith form into modular rings infused with Parma violet and olivine hues, while the brand’s iconic Harcourt glass was reimagined in bold new palettes and bio-based materials for a modern, nomadic lifestyle. Luciani treated the brand’s heritage like a “temporal bubble,” imagining crystal as a lost craft surviving at the very edge of the galaxy.
Elishua Bachor & Mierswa&Kluska.
Occhio.
Illumination took a more architectural turn at Occhio, which presented the ‘Era’ series inside its Corso Monforte store under the title ‘The Art of Reflection.’ Skilled hands carved a massive glass body from a single block before polishing it to achieve maximum radiance, finished with leather accents for the mobile lamps. Fireball technology allowed guests to control the atmosphere through hand gestures, while set designer Giulia Taglialatela draped the stage in green velvet and Schumacher textiles. The exhibition also featured the minimalist ‘Coro’ series and a new dark chrome finish, using lighting to improve well-being within the home.
Giuseppe Miotto.
Stone Island.
Stone Island went back to its roots at Capsule Plaza, reviving Massimo Osti’s ‘NO SEASONS’ project. Six archival fabrications, including Raso Gommato and David-TC, were presented in a single, industrial ‘piombo’ grey. The setting – a disused swimming pool – featured a massive LED wall by 700×100 and a sharp, dry-assembly interior by NM3. Outerwear was displayed along the pool’s original tiers, focusing entirely on construction. The Friendly Pressure sound system, complete with a patinated metal horn, provided the soundtrack for a week of talks with Lyst.
Persol & Cassina.
Persol & Cassina.
Heritage was similarly central for Persol and Cassina, who teamed up for a limited drop that felt like a love letter to their Italian archives. Architect Patricia Urquiola designed a valet tray made from recycled materials to match a pair of gradient blue frames inspired by the Meda archive. The packaging even mimicked old document folders to keep the history front and centre. Meanwhile, over at 10 Corso Como, the ‘Cassina Patronage’ project featured Linde Freya Tangelder’s ‘Fluid Re-Collection,’ where sculptural works sat next to industrial furniture to explore the idea of constant flow.
Agape.
Agape.
Agape continued its relentless interrogation of archetypal forms. The standout was ‘Tambre,’ the brand’s first collaboration with architect David Chipperfield, where a bathtub and washbasin merged into a single volume of warm Okumé hardwood. Named after a river in Galicia, the design bypassed traditional boundaries to create a silhouette inspired by Japanese washing rituals, with technical components vanishing into the frame. Patricia Urquiola expanded the Bloque system with the ‘Fuente’ washbasin – a geometry lesson in Gellycoated-Solid-Surface that sat somewhere between a semicircle and a square. The collection adopted a rich, earthy palette of pistachio and rust, while Neri&Hu contributed ‘Pitch,’ a series of accessories in Iroko wood and black aluminium inspired by the moving parts of traditional Chinese architecture.
Rimowa & Lehni.
Rimowa & Lehni.
Rimowa collaborated with the Swiss manufacturer Lehni to bring industrial storage into the home. Hand-finished by artisans in Zurich, the ‘Bench’ and ‘Drawer’ units arrived in silver and black anodised aluminium, fitted with scratch-resistant felt mats to protect cabin suitcases. The Rimowa Lehni Visitor Centre on Via Achille Maiocchi offered a much-needed escape with books from INNEN Publishing and a postcard station for guests to send handwritten notes. A window display by studioutte at the flagship store tied the whole aluminium-centric project together.
Ferrari.
Ferrari.
Ferrari ditched the tarmac for the water with ‘Hypersail,’ a hundred-foot flying monohull made of carbon fibre. Finished in a custom Grigio Hypersail with Giallo Fly accents – a visual tribute to the 275 GTB – the boat used solar panels to power its foiling system. Flavio Manzoni’s design team applied the same aerodynamic logic used for the Le Mans-winning 499P, creating a ship defined by the wind rather than its aesthetics. To mark the launch, a lighthouse sculpture took over the Highline Milano terrace, overlooking the Duomo.
Fiorucci.
Fiorucci.
Pop-optimism returned through Fiorucci and Qeeboo, who revived the 1980s ‘Toys’ pattern across a furniture collection. Stefano Giovannoni’s Rabbit Chair became a three-dimensional canvas for pop-art graphics featuring zebras and pin-up girls. A ceramic finish added a decorative weight to the pieces while coordinated poufs and cushions filled the flagship store on Via Crocefisso. The project looked at archival designs to bring a sense of utopian optimism back to contemporary living rooms, turning everyday objects into icons for a new generation.
Mikel Chillida & Annik Wetter.
Balenciaga.
The Montenapoleone flagship hosted iron sculptures by legendary sculptor Eduardo Chillida for a project titled ‘Artean.’ Creative Director Pierpaolo Piccioli (in a new collaborative capacity) linked the house founder to the sculptor through works like ‘Homenaje a Balenciaga.’ The display focused on how heavy volume reveals empty space, featuring ink drawings, string constructions and even traditional Basque treats. Chillida’s grandson, Mikel, joined the event to talk through the family’s sculptural legacy.
MCM.
MCM.
MCM hit fifty and celebrated by turning the Rotonda del Pellegrini into a three-level spaceship with the ‘Wearable Casa’ collection designed by Atelier Biagetti. The expedition started in a lab of upcycled robot poufs and moved to a central roller rink where a robot DJ played disco. The top level featured an operatic avatar singing a post-human aria in zero gravity, while iconic bags were reimagined in interplanetary silver and white monograms. It was a thumping, high-energy break from the city’s more serious galleries.
Nicolo De March.
Dior.
At Palazzo Landriani, Dior Maison showed the ‘Corolle’ lamps, designed by Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance as a tribute to the floral lines of the 1947 ‘New Look.’ The set, created by Thai artists Korakot Aromdee and Vasana Saima, was an organic garden that mirrored Christian Dior’s childhood home in Granville. The portable lamps combined craftsmanship with a modern approach to domestic lighting within the historic palazzo setting. Immersive scenography exuded a sense of heritage through graphic and organic forms, focusing on the house’s exploration of nomadic life through the lens of archival fashion.
photography. courtesy of Nike, Elishua Bachor, Philippe Garcia, Mierswa&Kluska, Giuseppe Miotto, Persol, Cassina, Agape, Rimowa, Lehni, Ferrari, Fiorucci, Qeeboo, Mikel Chillida, Annik Wetter, MCM, Nicolo De March
words. Gennaro Costanzo
