Milan is regarded as a pre-eminent capital for fashion and design. It is fitting that the scenic streets and picturesque architecture of the city hosts Milan Design Week, the largest annual design event in the world, attracting ideas and trends from across the world. 

The Milan Design Week swells the city population by almost a third, welcoming around 400,000 visitors to a week of business, networking, and brand events. Millions more are engaged on digital and social media platforms.

Viewed from afar, Milan Design Week is made up of two main events. The trade fair or ‘Salone del Mobile’ focuses on business visitors, while the ‘Furiosalone’ is a separate but symbiotic event that welcomes visitors to curated exhibitions, talks, and brand experiences happening around the city at the same time.

Fuorisalone spontaneously started in the 1980s and has organically grown in popularity for companies and brands, regardless of size, to impress visitors with their latest creations, brand promise, and design journey.

Design trends 

Sustainability is the main theme at this year’s Milan Design Week. Consumers are increasingly responding beyond words to thoughtful brands that are embedding sustainability into their products and processes. 

It is apt that the Furiosalone theme of ‘Materia Natura’ or ‘Matter Nature’ highlights sustainability as a guiding principle and fundamental virtue in the creative and design process. This influences how companies and brands can harness nature as a source of inspiration, design material, and guide for a sustainable future in their installations.

The theme also uplifts the design dialogue on how projects and ideas can integrate sustainability and wellness into our homes, workplaces, and travel. Brands can display how progressive design, together with advancing digital and manufacturing technologies is creating products with new functionalities with low-carbon emissions. 

There is also an exciting development in creating transformative experiences through personalization. The use of different materials, customized user settings, colors, and finishes, are empowering discerning consumers to create multiple looks and experiences, whether indoors or outdoors. 

LIXIL and GROHE Spa 

Antoine Besseyre des Horts, an award-winning designer, and Leader for LIXIL Global Design in Asia, shared that Milan Design Week represents an important global platform for elevating brands with architects, designers, and discerning consumers. 

It’s a perfect platform for brands to meaningfully engage visitors through the language of design, themes, and exhibits. For designers like Antoine, it’s a rare opportunity to convey deeper design influences and the thinking behind GROHE SPA, the premium sub-brand of GROHE and part of LIXIL.

The LIXIL team drew inspiration from the former courtyard garden of the Palazzo Reale and the Fuorisalone theme of ‘Materia Natura’ to create GROHE SPA ‘Aquatecture’. The vision was to elevate the significance and importance of water in architecture; accentuating the health and well-being benefits of the spa experience. The result is an immersive installation and experience that blurs the boundaries between indoor and outdoor spaces, offering private water-infused luxury and open lush greenery.

Antoine views the event and installation as an opportunity to elevate the conversation with architects, designers, and discerning consumers to new ideas and possibilities for personalized luxury. Each ‘Aquatecture’ space represents one of four tiers that bring GROHE SPA to life, including ultimate customization through 3D printing of one of one statement pieces. 

He observes that in Asia, water also plays an important role to purify and refresh the body, mind, and spirit. Flexible customization, through curated private collections and tailored shower or spray settings, elevates the showering experience to suit personal needs and preferences.

Public dialogues with prominent designers affirmed that collaboration and experimentation are key to advancing solutions around regenerative architecture and how built environments can serve as catalysts for well-being. Advancements in AI, design tools and materials technologies are also helping to create new ways to craft products and customizations.

Ultimately, his greatest satisfaction at Milan is in seeing thousands of visitors experiencing and connecting with products and experiences that deliver pure enjoyment of water. Their response inspires him and his global design colleagues and ensures their return to Milan Design Week.