Everything Dwell’s Executive Editor Couldn’t Look Away From at Salone del Mobile

This story is part of Fair Take, our reporting on global design events that looks up close at the newest ideas in fixtures, furnishings, and more.

I’ve never been to Comic Con, but I have to imagine attending it feels something like the experience of going to Salone del Mobile—if you multiplied the number of attendees by a few, and replaced the life-size Pikachus with invaluable works (and Aperol spritz stands). Before last week, I’d actually never attended the annual design festival in Milan, which ran this year from Tuesday to Sunday, and so I only had the word of coworkers and friends that it would definitely live up to its reputation as the largest of its kind in the world. "Don’t even try to see everything," Dwell’s Editor-in-Chief, William Hanley, warned me, of the fair and all the other events happening around town as well—and I didn’t. But photographer Olga Mai and I went in with a plan to see as much as we could. Here’s what stood out.

If you’re in the business of finding new talent like I am, Salone Satellite is the place to start. It’s the portion of the fair devoted to designers under 35, and is a great place to see work from those who are fully new to you, or the latest from those who are still early in their careers. It’s also where you’ll find some of the more sustainably-minded, creative work, something the bigger brands sometimes lose as they move away from scrappiness.

We highlighted the work of Luis Marie, which was founded by Fenna Marie van der Klei and Patricio Luis Nusselder of the Netherlands, when it debuted at the fair last year—both of my colleagues raved about it, and they won a Salone Satellite award—and I was also impressed this time around. Here Comes the Sun uses colors "inspired by the faded hues of Renaissance frescoes and the warmth of flowers in bloom," and while the room dividers are still striking, I loved the lamps, which feature a cord entirely wrapped in one piece of handblown laboratory glass.

Studio Suyangchoi is the practice of an artist of the same name, and has its origin in her having experienced a typhoon in her native South Korea, which sparked an interest in biodegradable work. Made entirely of seaweed, the light reminded me of a worm from a science fiction movie—Choi says it is "akin to the way hanji paper screens in Hanok scatter and softly deliver light."