Milan’s New Home Fair Makes Its Debut
MILAN — Trade show operator Fiera Milano unfurled a brand-new showcase Thursday at the Rho fairgrounds. Milano Home is a new annual event dedicated to the mid-to-high-end world of home decor and accessories. The four-day event, which closes here Sunday, replaces the now-defunct Homi, a more mass market biannual fair that was also dedicated to the home sector.
Seeking to satiate a growing appetite for original decor and solutions for the home, Milano Home put forth high-end brands like leading Italian design home brand Alessi, Swedish glassware maker Kosta Boda, Italian home fragrance maker Culti Milano and historic Calabrian home interiors textile maker Lanificio Leo. The latter showcased AI-generated fabric designs and is the region of Calabria’s oldest textile firm and highlighted organizers’ commitment to showcasing more artisan brands.
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The fair’s director Emanuele Guido said Milano Home — which was divided into four halls dedicated to umbrella themes like Vibes, Mood, Elements and Taste — represented the ongoing evolution gripping the sector worldwide.
“Consumers are no longer interested in a standardized offering, but are looking for authentic, original and sustainable products,” he said in an interview, stressing the need for an omnichannel presence in which online and physical stores benefit each other. Examples of ideal omnichannel enterprises for Milano Home brands include firms built on originality and exclusivity like MoMA Design Store, whose buyers were among those expected in attendance. Another trend that spurred the change is that in Italy, traditional stores and wedding registry outlets are nearly obsolete, he said.
“Today in Milan you have shops that work more on the concept of what their identity is. Customers who go to visit that shop go to visit it because they recognize themselves in the identity of that shop…places where different types of products, selections of tea, selections of artifacts, selections of products are put together under one roof,” he added.
Milano Home, with 570 exhibitors, 35 percent of which are from abroad, joins a roster of global home events taking place in January that includes Maison & Objet in Paris and Ambiente in Frankfurt. Upscale brands like Venetian glass maker Venini 1921, hand-painted porcelain maker, Denmark’s Royal Copenhagen 1775 and French crystal and jewelry brand Lalique 1888 were among the standout names on the fairgrounds.
Alessi president Alberto Alessi agreed that while the firm did not have a commercial booth at the fair, Milano Home’s “Breaking News” section was the ideal place to showcase its exhibit dedicated to Il Tornitore Matto, or the Mad Turner collection, which is emblematic of Alessi’s penchant for challenging collaborators with metal-turning techniques. “[The fair] is about originality, authenticity and the care involved in production of objects.…I wanted a place where I could reflect freely both on the processes and production models linked to metal, and on the linguistic evolution of classic typologies of the domestic world,” he said.
First-day buyers at the fair included Paris native Delphine Jaillot of Comme à la Maison, a boutique she runs with her family, situated on Milan’s Via Solari. At first blush, she said, the elevated sense of quality was palpable and more in-line with Paris fair Maison & Objet, minus the furniture element. Among the items that caught her eye were leather aprons, glassware, ceramic items and holiday decor for next year. Jaillot commented on how the boutique’s online shop was a compliment to their business, whilst booking a lot of orders on Instagram, through which the boutique now makes special orders directly through chat platform WhatsApp.
Contemporary glass and objects maker Kosta Boda’s Italy distributor 4 You Design showcased the brand’s latest Pavilion vases and edgy Rocky Baroque candle holders that debuted at Copenhagen’s 3daysofdesign in June, with the hope of enhancing the firm’s bold, artistic image in Italy. “People who really know Kosta Boda absolutely love it and we are confident that the Italian market is going to embrace it,” said commercial director Michela Pastori.
Across the way, one of Italy’s oldest distributors, Maino Carlo, showcased the latest solution-solving items in its portfolio: small kitchen appliances, which included a Magimix juicer and food processor and a lightweight Emile Henry dutch oven made with ceramic rather than porcelain, among them. Co-owner Romano Maino’s grandfather Angelo was one of the founders of the first home fairs in Milan in 1919 and his father Carlo was among the founders of its successor Macef in 1965. Maino shrugged off concerns about inflation and physical store slowdown saying out of his network of the 1,000 Italian stores he works with, the business only lost four in the past three years. “We still need fairs. Clients keep on coming and it’s definitely useful at least once a year.”
Other solution-solving products took center stage at the Green Circle section, a project by Rare Mood, a nonprofit scientific project dedicated to home. Italian sustainable firm Vitesy unveiled an air filter made with recycled plastic and outfitted with a washable filter, while Slovenia’s Skaza unveiled its latest home waste composter.
Economic data released by Fiera Milano paints a positive picture for the next three years.
Despite a consumer slowdown spurred by rising inflation, France, the U.S. and Germany are expected to represent the main single markets to drive Italian sales in the home sector, which are expected to increase by around 40 million euros by 2027 compared to 2023. Citing a recent outlook provided by the International Monetary Fund, the global home sector, Fiera Milano said, minus the furniture sector, totaled 132 billion euros in 2023.
Italy is in 11th position among the world exporters of home products, according to preliminary figures. China ranks number one, with its exports valued at 85 billion euros.
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