2010 Milan furniture fair showcases wares that appeal to our practical side
By the time the celebrated Milan furniture fair closed this week, the hottest style to emerge from the world’s premiere showcase for home design wasn’t supremely minimalist, elegantly baroque, technologically dazzling or glamorously chic. The look of 2010 was simply sober.
The manufacturer representatives, designers, store buyers, journalists and design aficionados who attended the Salone Internazionale del Mobile saw fewer over-the-top spectacles conceived to land on magazine covers. Instead, exhibition halls were loaded with furniture that consumers might actually want in their living rooms: thoughtful, practical and in some cases, less expensive.
As demand has plunged in the last two years, smart manufacturers began listening — closely — to the demands of the few customers they still had. The result, on display here, was less couture and more high design aimed to sell.
At parties held around town in conjunction with the show, some concerned talk centered on the perceived lack of artistic ambition put into the 2010 collections. But after years of glorious excess, the sense of restraint and the focus on the customer felt refreshing to others.
The upshot of the recession may be death — or at least a coma — for the limited edition, the art piece that had increasingly become a cash cow for many in the industry. Limit production of a brilliant chair or table to, say, 50 or 100, and in better times sellers could drive up the price and still find plenty of buyers willing to pay a premium. With that population of consumers having significantly dwindled, sellers now face a decision: Create a one-off original so phenomenally beautiful or technologically groundbreaking that a museum or rich patron will pay a monumental sum to own the single piece, or design furniture smart enough to sell by the thousands. Art will be art, and furniture will be furniture.
Throughout the Salone, booths showcased the pragmatic. Dining tables that better camouflaged extensions, chairs that looked sophisticated and high-end but still had upholstery that could be removed for dry cleaning, inexpensive materials that ultimately will lower the price to consumers — these were solutions to common problems. Contemporary riffs on traditional cane and woven seating were abundant, partly because materials were less costly than upholstery.
Last year Normann Copenhagen premiered a line of furniture that was handmade in Denmark and priced accordingly. A crafty quilted chair was 6,180 euro, about $8,350 at current exchange rates. A lime green wall shelf was about $3,650, plus delivery.
And for 2010? The company introduced a Pop-flavored take on the wingback chair for less than $2,910. A new free-standing display unit with ash legs and powder-coated aluminum shelves will cost $546, and a clever Eames-esque pendant light will start at $256 and go up depending on size. Both pieces will be shipped flat-packed for customers to assemble themselves.
“We really tried to make new items with price in mind,” spokeswoman Johanne Toft said. “Lower cost without sacrificing style or quality.”
Laura Anzani, chief operating officer for Poliform USA, used the Salone to stress that her company is delivering designs for a range of shoppers. Poliform may be best known for modern closet and shelving systems that cost thousands, but last year it introduced an upholstered dining chair with solid wood legs that sold for about $200 and up, depending on the fabric. This year the company expanded its line with Fold, a sleek plastic chair that will sell for about $200.
“We want to give our customers more options,” Anzani said.
The designs shown here are important, because they likely will filter down to the mass marketplace, influencing not only high-end offerings but also low-cost knockoffs.
But lest anyone worry that practicality would spoil the party, rest assured: Innovation, inspiration and a touch of the avante guard were still present at the fair, delivered by top names such as Patricia Urquiola as well as emerging designers. Urquiola offered a 21st century take on the 18th century Windsor chair, a stunning piece for Kartell that was a little bit granny, a little bit goth, at once sentimental, chic and tongue in cheek.
In an area designated for emerging designers, Helena Karelson of Estonia reinvented mini blinds with Contour. Precision-cut wood slats formed an undulating pattern, a rolling landscape inside your window. Nearby, Jovana Bogdanovic packed sugar into tiny polar bear-shaped molds and explained the concept: “Bears are drowning in real life,” she said. As a reminder of global warming, every time a java drinker drops a sugar bear into coffee, “you are drowning the bear just like we are drowning the bears in real life. The sugar dissolves away.”
As ideological design marched ahead, the wheels of commerce spun forward at the booth for Kartell, the Italian company known for high-end plastic furniture. After Day 1 of the fair, owner Claudio Luti said his company was on pace to sign double the number of orders as last year. Later in the week, a dinner party hosted at his home drew Urquiola, Paola Navone and other European design royalty, who feasted on stewed octopus served over polenta and frozen kumquats filled with gelato. When the Champagne ran out, the party didn’t skip a beat. Chardonnay started flowing freely. This year in Milan, there was much to toast.
