As everyone had promised, and first of all the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, who will come to inaugurate the 60th edition of the salon of salons, the Salone del Mobile will be in June, from 7 to 12, at its peak.
Occupied in every square meter of the world fair of beauty and innovation, it will once again return to its records. And, for the first time, they will take place together – rightly after years of blockade – the three biennial events, Eurocucina, FTK and Salone del Bagno. But with many new features since, after the long period of the lockdown (3 years from 2019, the last event) and after the happy "restricted" edition of the special Supersalone in September, the heads of the exhibition, of the city, of the region and of FederlegnoArredo they have chosen the path of changes imposed by the many environmental, economic and social emergencies. Thus the young and brilliant Maria Porro, entrepreneur and president of the Salone, explained with a happy synthesis the entire plot along which Milan, Italy and even Europe, once again become protagonists in indicating a more sustainable, "human", open lifestyle.
Salone del Mobile, a crossroads of cultures
“The Salone del Mobile has always been a catalyst for creativity and energy. It is a generator of beauty, inclusion, new opportunities. We have always been a place of dialogue and construction, in Milan as in the Shanghai and Moscow editions. Today, shocked like everyone else by the war in Ukraine, we believe even more in the value of our own be a crossroads of cultures and styles open to the world”, began today the President of the Salone del Mobile Porro in the press conference to present the exhibition at the historic Teatro Lirico which has just come out of a spectacular restoration. “That's why we are committed to putting the work of the exhibiting companies back at the centre. The Event becomes a 'blank sheet' available to all its protagonists – companies, brands, designers – to design their own identity, enhance their contents, tell their own stories. A point of reference for the entire design community. We cannot stop, but rather we have a duty to accelerate towards design, production and distribution solutions that are as sustainable as possible; today more than ever we need an ethical approach to design”, explained Porro.
Everything you need to know about the Salone del Mobile
So the organizers have launched and disseminated a series of strict guidelines that help exhibitors and those who design and build stands to follow basic sustainability criteria. Environmental and social welfare will also be the theme of Design with Nature, the installation designed by one of the most famous Italian architects, Mario Cucinella, for the "birthday" of the Salone and located in pavilion 15 of S.Project: 1.400 mXNUMX that will tell the story of a virtuous ecosystem that would ideally represent the future of inhabit.
The areas of the fair will gather, altogether, more than 2.000 exhibitors including over 600 young designers under 35 and just for young people, their usual debut location, the Spazio Satellite, invented decades ago by Marva Griffin, will have new great importance since it will be located in the first pavilion, almost as if to give the first and stimulating welcome to those who enter the fair .
From the bathroom to the kitchen – which has become the center of the home and family during and after the pandemic – to FTK (Technology For the Kitchen), the area of intelligent and sustainable technologies, the June event is already having a worldwide echo.
“We will be out, hopefully, of the pandemic, conflicts and also the cold; really – commented the entrepreneurs of the sector during the press conference – there should be the best conditions to return after three years to sign contracts”. A fundamental aspect, also because participating in the show costs a lot. In total, including expenses outside the Salone (the highest), the bill often reaches one million euros.
The numbers of the Salone del Mobile
And speaking of numbers, many Italian and foreign "eggheads" have gathered around the Salone and the Italian home system in these difficult months because 26 billion in exports are at stake only in the Furniture and Lighting sector (a world record) but also, as a consequence, 4,5 percent of Italian manufacturing turnover, that of the impressive FederlegnoArredo system, now close to 50 billion euros, as confirmed by the president Claudio Feltrin. Not only that, other numbers demonstrate that the Show is vital for the Italian economy: Fiera Milano trade fair sales are worth 53,7 billion (3 per cent of GDP) and the design event alone brings in 30. The Salone del Mobile effect produces in its six days of development, for the city of Milan alone, a turnover exceeding 200-250 million.
The effect of the Russia-Ukraine war
As for the Russia-Ukraine conflict, President Claudio Feltrin made a very alarming comment. “The conflict is increasing supply difficulties of companies and further pushing up the prices of raw materials and energy, reaching the final product and making our products and therefore our companies less competitive".
From Ukraine, Russia and Belarus we import around 5,3% of logs, panels and sawn timber which are worth 468.948 cubic meters (data Jan-Nov 2021) out of the total around 9 million cubic meters arriving in Italy from all over the world. Russia is worth 2,5%, Ukraine 2,3% and Belarus 0,5%. Russia's weight on exports of the wood-furniture supply chain is equal to 410 million euros (data updated to November 2021) which in 2019 was 435, thus recording a decrease of about 6 percentage points. The furniture and lighting macrosystem, on the other hand, is worth around 340 million euros, which was 361 in 2019, with a decrease recorded in this case too by around 6 percentage points.
In the export "ranking" of the furniture Macrosystem Russia is the ninth country, behind China, Spain and Belgium. “Our companies, which in 2021 seemed to have left behind the worst period of the pandemic, are now looking to the future with great uncertainty and concern for a conflict which, in addition to being a human tragedy, also risks completely block the recovery phase of the economy and to bring with it recessionary scenarios”.
