Milan Design Week 2025

From 7th to 13th April, the world’s largest design fair transforms the streets of Milan. Centred around the renowned Salone del Mobile, the city comes alive with events and exhibitions celebrating innovation, product launches, emerging talent, and landmark design.

Join us as we share some of our highlights from Milan Design Fair 2025.

1. Michael Anastassiades
Fondazione Jacqueline Vodoz e Bruno Danese

Michael Anastassiades created an exhibition to showcase a new collection of kite-inspired lighting designs called Cygnet, inspired by a quote from Anais Nin.

 “Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.”
 
Anastassiades created a beautiful installation in an exceptional space at the Fondazione Jacqueline Vodoz e Bruno Danese, carefully positioning a free-standing hand-tied bamboo structure.
 
Cygnet is a series of light sculptures composed of Alexander Graham Bell’s simple tetrahedron cell. Two equilateral paper triangles are connected along their edge and illuminated by a projected light source concealed in the polished aluminium outer frame. Available in two sizes and different arrangements to work in various environments: over a table, staircase, or floating in an interior space.
 
Also on display was Frame, a series of pendant lights in open square structures, repeating in various configurations and illuminating upwards or downwards.

2. MORE OR LESS 60 CHAIRS IN 60 YEARS
Fondazione Vico Magistretti |  03.04.2025 to 26.02.2026

More or Less 60 Chairs in 60 Years is not just an exhibition. It is a testament to Vico Magistretti’s declared passion for chairs.

He admitted in a 2003 interview: 

“I have a somewhat shameful passion for chairs. I think it's because they’re the hardest thing, they don't forgive you anything. It's hard to be happy with a chair.”

It is a well-known obsession; as early as 1980, following an idea from his friend Enrico Baleri, Magistretti organised a solo exhibition at Studio Marconi in Milan, Vent’anni, Venti sedie (Twenty years, Twenty chairs). The title was simple, effective, and worked just as well in London the following year when, with a slight tweak, it became Twenty-one years, twenty-one chairs.

Today, Fondazione Studio Museo Vico Magistretti takes up the torch with More or Less 60 Chairs in 60. Luca Poncellini, the exhibition’s curator, has meticulously navigated the extensive archive, allowing the design lines of Magistretti’s work – concept design, redesigning the tradition, and autobiographical inspiration – to come together to narrate an entire career through a single furniture typology: the chair. 

The exhibition unfolds along two paths: a timeline of original drawings and photographic reproductions of more than sixty chairs – sixty-six, to be precise, too many for the small studio museum, designed by Magistretti over his sixty-year career. In addition, a dozen or so chairs are available for visitors to sit on and try out, along with just as many notebooks filled with the stories behind each chair: insights, collaborations, revisions, reconsiderations, production challenges, and even some legal troubles.

Thus, More or less 60 Chairs in 60 is not just an exhibition; it is an invitation to sit down – literally – and read: each chair tells its own story, and together, they reveal the vision of a designer who left an indelible mark on both Italian and international design history.

3. 24 HOURS
RIVIERA Creative Space

Marking the linearity of time and its relentless flow, 24 HOURS displayed exclusive creations by 24 international design studios in a project curated by Jamie Wolfond and Milanese studio Simple Flair.
 
Including work by Alban Le Henri, Chris Fusaro, Chris Kabel, Dach & Zephyr, Daniel Schofield, Earnest Studio, Hugo Passos & Sam Weller, Jamie Wolfond, John Tree, Julien Renault, Jun Yasumoto, Kindkow, Maddalena Casadei, Marco Campardo, MSDS Studio, Pereira Office, Sam Newman, Sam Stewart, Shane Schneck, Shigeki Fujishiro, Sina Sohrab, Studio Gorm, Studio OE, Theo Leclercq & Camille Viallet.

4. Weaving Anni Albers
Dedar, in collaboration with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation

We had the good fortune to visit the architectural masterpiece Torre Velasca, designed by the Milanese firm BBPR in the 1950s. On a clear day, we enjoyed incredible 360° panoramic views from the 16th floor and the beautifully curated exhibition created by the Como-based company Dedar, showcasing the timeless work of Anni Albers.

Weaving Anni Albers – in collaboration with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation brings the legendary artist’s textile works into a new era, balancing fidelity to her artistic vision with modern manufacturing innovation. Five iconic Albers fabrics have been meticulously reproduced and reimagined using contemporary techniques. Presenting the collection at Torre Velasca, a landmark of modernist architecture, elegantly reinforced the dialogue between past and present.

5. JS . THONET - A personal interpretation by Jil Sanders
Via Brera 16

"I wanted the chair’s iconic status to be apparent at first glance and its details to slowly reveal themselves."

Jil Sanders, 2025

Her 2025 collaboration with Thonet is her first foray into the world of furniture design, in which she used her mastery of colours and structures to reinterpret an iconic Bauhaus design. Sander’s redesign of Marcel Breuer’s S 64 cantilever chair reflects her design philosophy, which takes traditional values and classic parameters and gives them a contemporary twist. Using a delicate balance of the perfect materials and colours, Sander has given Thonet’s tubular steel classics a new sensual quality and lent fresh appeal.

See more from behind the scenes of our trip to Milan here.