More Than Meets the Eye: Highlights from Milan Design Week 2025

This year’s Milan Design Week drew over half a million attendees from around the globe, reaffirming its place as the world’s largest celebration of design and creativity. For me, it marked a meaningful return—my first trip to Salone del Mobile in exactly 20 years.

From awe-inspiring exhibits to grassroots showcases, Milan was a powerful reminder of why we design in the first place: to explore, provoke, and celebrate creativity in all its forms.

Over four days, I walked and biked nearly 70 miles across all six of Milan’s vibrant design districts, soaking up the slower pace of Milan life—where people love to talk, ideas flow freely, and the line between art and design blurs in the best possible way.

The running theme of the week? More than meets the eye. Nearly every exhibit invited a closer look—urging visitors to dig beneath the surface to uncover the story, process, and emotion behind the work.

Salone served as a creative reset. In a world that often prioritizes speed and efficiency, Milan was a grounding reminder of the beauty within the process. Whether it was a hand-painted table, a raw material reimagined, or a fully immersive conceptual installation, each space encouraged a slower, more thoughtful approach to design.

Lighting stole the show—used not just for function, but for interaction, mood, and atmosphere. I saw elegant systems with gestural and haptic controls, rich finishes, and serious emotional presence.

Large-format 3D printing showed up in unexpected ways—full-sized furniture, sculptural forms, and architectural elements. These pieces didn’t try to hide the layers. They embraced them. The process was the story.

At Alcova—the fair focused on emerging designers that runs in tandem with Salone del Mobile—PORTAL showcased a futuristic 3D-printed furniture collection featuring ten uniquely designed chairs. Created through a collaborative effort with AI design platform Vizcom and robotic 3D printing companies Caracol and DIVE, the project blended AI ideation with robotic additive manufacturing in a way that felt both experimental and elevated.

There was also a strong return to the tactile. In contrast to our increasingly digital lives, Milan leaned into the handmade. Prototypes, material swatches, and analog sketches sat proudly beside finished pieces. The journey was on display—and it was just as important as the destination.

Sustainability and craftsmanship took center stage, with designers showcasing inventive uses of natural, recycled, and reclaimed materials in spaces that celebrated process and tradition.

Casa Cork by Rockwell Group was a standout—a warm, textural space that combined material experimentation with refined furniture design. Masterly – The Dutch in Milano featured a range of imaginative, sustainability-driven concepts that pushed material possibilities.

Many brands transformed historic palazzos into immersive showrooms. The Versace showcase, staged within one of Milan’s most iconic palazzos, brought fashion, home, and heritage together in a striking display of luxury and legacy.

One of the week’s most memorable installations came from Range Rover, which used immersive storytelling, furniture, and fashion design to transport visitors through time, from a 1960s classic to its modern-day predecessor housed in a two-sided showroom—proving that time travel is possible. The entire experience was dreamed up by Rodrigo Caula and the crew at Nuova Group, a small Venice Beach-based luxury design studio. It was a powerful reminder that bold, unforgettable experiences don’t require big agencies—just big imagination. Keep up the amazing work!

Another highlight was Layer’s 101010, a decade-spanning retrospective from Benjamin Hubert’s studio. The showcase combined hand sketches, prototypes, and production products. The exhibit was a masterclass in how to tell a design story beyond the final product. It was industrial design meets art gallery, and a playground for process.

Occhio delivered what might have been the best product showroom of the week—with precision German-engineered lighting and a lot more than meets the eye. Their gestural, haptic controls and PVD finishes were flawlessly executed.

Beyond the exhibits, Milan was a chance for me to reconnect with old friends and meet new collaborators. I discovered a handful of promising material and lighting vendors I’m eager to follow up with. I spent much of the week with my longtime friend Scott Wilson, Founder of MNML—it was great to catch up and talk about the state of design nowadays. Big props to Mateo Iavicoli, also from MNML, and his parents, Venchenzo and Maria, for being incredible tour guides.

It was also great to see Josh Owen, Director of the Vignelli Center for Design Studies at RIT—always a pleasure to cross paths.

I met a ton of new designers from European firms—folks from Blonde in London, Noto in Copenhagen, and Tactic in Milan. At the Tactic open studio, I realized that many of the attendees had Vincenzo as their professor while studying at the Art Center in Europe before it closed in 1996. And, a huge shoutout to Andrea Pedulli from Alessi for hosting us—along with a great group of local designers—at Frank’s Dumpling Feast before we headed to Bar Basso one night.

With over 600 photos and videos, my Milan mood board is still growing, and the spark from this year’s trip is already influencing new ideas back in the studio. I’m taking that inspiration with me—more excited than ever to share not just the final product, but the art, thinking, and passion behind it.