The Coachella of chairs
5 of earth's top designers on the best work from Milan's Salone del Mobile
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Today we’ve got a speciale dispatchiolo for you from Milan’s Salone del Mobile, the world’s biggest event for scouting product-design talent, seeing new creations from upstart students and established GOATS alike, and getting intel on who’s doing great work, who’s not paying on time, which city’s rents are luring which studios where, etc., etc., over an Aperol spritz or three.
The fair has always been about selling things. But over the past couple years it’s increasingly become a place where — like a mamma-mia-fied SXSW — all kinds of big fashion brands set up splashy “immersive activations” so that influencers can tag them on IG. But it’s still a great place to stay up on good design.
I (Erin) first went to Salone in 2015 as part of Apple’s industrial design team. Back then, Bar Basso — the tiny bar est. circa 1947 where approximately every person who attends the fair ends up each night — was hardly an under-the-radar spot, but big-deal designers would still hang out there (the Bouroullec brothers were milling around the first time I went).
These days a massive throng of people spills out over a cobblestone plaza in front of the place nightly. It’s wonderful that you can roll up by yourself and bump into a bunch of homies at 3 a.m. But the last time I attended Salone, in 2023, the real design heads had decamped for a very cool-uncool bar in Porta Magenta. I am not at liberty to disclose its name, but trust and believe it has on-point U.G.H.Z. vibes, down to the stained-glass tavern lamps and always-on TV, which I flicked up below left.
I wasn’t there this year — Jonah and I are currently very far from Milan, on a Japan recon journey. So I used our SpyLink comms technology to tap in with my Elite Global ID Network, asking 5 of my favorite product designers on earth to tell me about the best things they saw in Milan this week. These are the kinds of discerning people who might lose their appetite when the weight distribution of a fork is off. Who might exit a space if they sense that the radii within it are not perfectly curvature-continuous!
Some of their picks include:
Sick camping-cot-inspired folding furniture, designed in the ‘90s, that’s about to get run back
Twisted takes on metal that you can gaze into, sit on and store things in
Newly reissued industrial-inspired lighting for the home by a Finnish O.G.
Poetic kites & more
Let’s get to it, starting with a British designer and Big Homie Spyfriend —
🛋️ 1. John Tree is The Guy To Know when it comes to product design. He first made his name in the ‘90s devising very cool electronics for Motorola and Sony before the design legend Jasper Morrison hired him to his team. John and Jasper collaborated on the extremely dope 1998 Sony concept hifi pictured up top, and John went on to work in Morrison’s studio for more than 20 years. He opened his own studio in 2016, designing for Hay, Roli, Varnii & other places.
Every year at the Salone, John brings a bunch of the best designers together for an epic dinner at an old-school steakhouse whose custom floral-jacquard napkins (pictured above) I’ve been tempted to steal, but haven’t, out of respect!!
Here are the pieces that excited him most this year: