Salone del Mobile 2025: Tuesday 8th April starts at Milan, in the city and at the Fair, the most important global event of the project, the Design Week Milan (DwM) now in its 63rd edition. At the same time, a series of parties, meetings and performances will take place, namely the fuorisalone with around a thousand appointments. In Rho Fiera, up to Sunday April 13, exhibit, on 169 thousand square meters of floor space, over 1.200 exhibitors with 168 brands for the first time at the Salone, with an increasingly consistent presence from abroad. And at the same time, the biennial Euroluce will also take place.
Despite the sales crisis, despite the duties introduced by the American government, this edition of the Salone – according to the reservations and arrivals that have been animating the city for several days now – will not disappoint expectations, with the arrival of thousands and thousands of buyers, designers and general contractors. The total number of visitors will probably not exceed last year's edition since the biennial Eurocucina, which took place last year, was a strong catalyst for visitors, probably more than Euroluce.
Salone del Mobile: everything sold out, even after
The investors arriving at Fiera Milano come from more than 150 countries. “In recent months, there have been alarming rumours that there were no hotel reservations in the city and in Northern Italy at all, that is, the sold-out of the golden years was missing – comments Franca Rottola, architect and journalist – instead there is a sold-out, and even with hotels booked before and after the opening dates, proving that thanks to the Salone, operators and buyers consolidate the contacts made at the Fair, because it has been proven for years that those who exhibit at the Salone then obtain an increase in sales abroad. And this despite the unjustified dizzying increases that hoteliers have always practiced in this period”.
Caimi, the Salone del Mobile, the driving force of the sector
“The Salon is the driving force of our entire sector, it is essential – comments Frank Caimi, president of the historic Caimi, one of the most prestigious brands in furniture and with products even present at the Moma in New York – This is an event of global excellence that must be preserved from every point of view, without which Italian design could not exert the same strong attraction that it exerts throughout the world and especially in the USA. I underline that it must be increasingly protected and promoted”.
The queue of foreign companies – many of them Chinese – waiting to exhibit in Milan demonstrates the centrality of Milan worldwide. Yet not all the historic furniture makers have approved the changes made to the traditional formula, not having liked for example the combination of design and culture. "They are wrong, because in reality this new formula – he claims Roberta Mutti, a guru of the sector, an expert in trade fairs and trade fair marketing – reflects precisely the choices of that special type of decision-makers-operators who make up the cosmopolitan world of design. And besides, the trade fairs in the sector that followed Milan's example were right, because after Covid, even the traditional trade fair sector had to change”. A few – and very few – big names chose the Fuorisalone after a period of continuous and very expensive showroom openings abroad that had a heavy impact on budgets.
Fuorisalone, too much of everything
“Doing only the Fuorisalone? I don't think it's a wise choice, and besides the Fuorisalone exists only because the Fair is there”. And indeed, there is much criticism about the excess of events at the Fuorisalone. Roberta Mutti, having created the most complete collection of Fuorisalones that take place around the world and having visited them, agrees. “The events scheduled, in the city and out of town, are really too many, and they don’t always have anything to do with design, or they are useless presentations of products that should instead take place at the Fair. Let’s not forget that the value of the Fuorisalone was and must be in the scenographic aspect of the installations. This year too, I tried to select a guide of 150 events that are worth visiting, but I didn’t even get to one hundred”. This selection is published on the Mutti website (designweekguida.com), along with a whole series of information about the Fuorisalones around the world.
Furnishings: the market and the sentiment
“As many as 9 out of 10 Italians (89%) attribute great importance tofurnishings and the aesthetic aspect of one's home: it is no coincidence that in 2024 there was a significant growth in consumer credit in the furniture sector, with a value of approximately 2,6 billion euros (+5,8% compared to 2023). Also expanding is the "Buy now pay later” (Bnpl), increasingly chosen by Italians to purchase quality furniture and design thanks to the ease of deferring spending”. With this incipit, a study by Compass-Mediobanca group assigns quality Made in Italy the primacy of sales by Italians, even in times of crisis. Driving this growing propensity for medium-high range furniture are millennials, but almost all buyers are more demanding when it comes to aesthetics and quality finishes.
And in the meantime, to confirm, even in times like these of heavy uncertainty about the stability of the markets, here come the official final data for 2024 of the wood supply chain which prove to be less burdensome than the pre-consolidated ones. The Study Centre of FederlegnoArredo communicated that the turnover, after two years of strong growth, has reached 51,7 billion euros, instead of the 51,6 of the preliminary budget and in any case - as underlined President Claudio Feltrin, still above 2019 data, despite the 2,9% decline on 2023 (the drop in the final figures was 3,1%). “Exports are falling less – minus 2,1% – than the domestic market, and they reach 19,4 billion, equivalent to 38% of the supply chain turnover and over 52% for the furniture macrosystem. As for duties, the US market is the first non-EU market. Europe has the opportunity to act as such”.
Furnishing: design and culture
The change brought about two years ago at the Salone has led, on the one hand, to a mono-planar layout of the exhibition area and, on the other, to a structural grafting of high-quality cultural events and settings. And for the Euroluce biennial, the latest highlight, the Library of Light, signed by Es Devlin who lights up the Pinacoteca di Brera with a spectacular installation dedicated to the value of knowledge. But it will be Mother the highlight of a very rich program that will reveal in the fascinating dim light of the Museo della Pietà Rondanini, an immersive installation by Robert Wilson. A visionary tribute to Michelangelo's unfinished sculpture, in dialogue with the music of Arvo Pärt.
Salone del Mobile 2025: What does the foreign press write?
I foreign journalists who arrive in Milan far exceed the Italian ones and above all those who come from North America are increasing, for whom the most interesting guide is the very popular one BoH, Businesses of Home. Fred Nicolaus of I don't know wrote: “It’s a traditional annual pilgrimage… Just as birds fly south for the winter in search of warmer weather, each spring, designers in dress shoes and magazine editors in trendy glasses head to Milan Design Week. And coming from all over the world, many will eventually find their way to the famous Bar Basso, but even more will head to the center of the action, the giant Fiera Milano complex on the outskirts of Rho.” Verbatim. Equally enthusiastic are the articles of other colleagues of his from the States who, despite the uncertainties of the moment, are of the opinion that at made in Italy, which is also intended for a segment of "high spenders", will hardly be given up.
