Fashion Brands Amp Up Milan Design Week Participation
MILAN — Design Week is a month and a half away, but things are already abloom in Milan. The calendar of exhibitions, installations and presentations planned throughout the city during the Salone del Mobile.Milano trade show will run April 15 to 21. Fuorisalone will unfurl under the aegis of the theme “Materia Natura” (Italian for natural matter) to promote a culture of conscious design.
In line with that theme, Zegna will open the doors of its Milan headquarters on Via Savona for an immersive exhibit “Born in Oasi Zegna” that will give the design crowd the opportunity to immerse themselves in Oasi Zegna and discover a brand new collector’s book that will be released during the event. The Oasi Zegna is a territory spanning more than 62 miles designed and created by founder Ermenegildo Zegna in the mountains of Northern Italy, Piedmont, around Trivero where the company is based. In the late 1920s, he planted 500,000 pine trees, created the road 232 connecting the two sides of the mountain and made them accessible for all.
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Fuorisalone organizers said Zegna will create a path that intertwines art and nature: “You will be able to walk among the lush vegetation of the forest and interact with the stories and the images that animate the pages of the book.”
In November, Zegna announced it was named official partner of the city of Milan for the design and care of the flower beds in Piazza Duomo for the next three years. The new Zegna Duomo flower beds will be donated to the city during Design Week. Zegna succeeds global coffee giant Starbucks, which planted palm trees in Piazza Duomo in 2017 as part of a contract it won to restyle the green spaces surrounding the equestrian monument to former King Victor Emmanuel II. During Design Week in April, Starbucks will unveil Dermophonic, a sensorial project with Italy-based artist and designer Matteo Cibic set inside the Starbucks Reserve Roasters in Piazza Cordusio.
For the event, Zegna has worked with botanical and landscape experts to bring some of the signature elements of the Oasi’s vegetation to Milan, while respecting its biodiversity and the ecosystem. Fuorisalone organizers said camphor bushes and evergreen plants, as well as flowers such as rhododendrons and philadelphus, are expected to attract the design curious, as well as pollinating insects.
Elsewhere, accessible Italian brand Marella will participate in Milan Design Week 2024 with the installation “Eden Unveiled” by the Sicilian artist Domenico Pellegrino inspired by the myth of the birth of spring, which will illuminate the windows and interior of the Marella flagship in Corso Vittorio Emanuele.
German luxury brand MCM will unfurl Wearable Casa, an installation set at Palazzo Cusani conceived by Atelier Biagetti that is “characterized by the perfect fusion of irony and originality, objects that transcend their traditional role and transport the public to another planet,” organizers said.
Porsche will unveil “The Pattern of Dreams,” the fifth edition of its itinerant “The Art of Dreams” series, a global initiative set to connect the public with the creative community through the commission of works of art and inspired by the theme of dreams. The Milan Design Week edition will include “Lines of Flight,” a monumental interactive work of art set in the city’s Palazzo Clerici, which boasts frescoes by 18th-century painter Giambattista Tiepolo.
In an effort to make design week more accessible to students, many of whom cannot afford high-ticket hotel rooms, IED (an acronym for European Institution of Design) will set up a camp free of charge. Students are afforded the opportunity to stay up to a maximum of two nights, organizers said. Named the Glitch Camp, the urban lodging will be set up in the Enrico Cappelli Savorelli Sports Center and is located south of the city center.
Fuorisalone cofounder and creative director Paolo Casati said there are still more fashion exhibitions on the horizon that have yet to be announced. The sector’s participation and investment in the calendar of events, he said, continues to grow.
“[Their investment] is in continuous and constant growth and above all they are among the companies that most appreciate our work, our languages. Because the world of fashion is much further ahead of design in terms of communication,” Casati reflected.
Carmaker Hyundai and cigarette alternative company Glo are main sponsors of the event, in addition to Grand Seiko, which has been named Official Timekeeper.
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