On Thursday 17 April, the VMPR team traveled to Milan to see the latest collections launched by the biggest names in interiors at Salone Internazionale del Mobile. Ligne Roset and Lladró both exhibited, with highlights including Pierre Paulin’s Pumpkin chair for Roset and the most recent pieces to be born of Lladró’s collaboration with Spanish man of the moment, Jaime Hayon.

Acid brights were still in abundance across the exhibitors, as well strong trends for ‘fractural’ design (visualized particularly well at Ligne Roset and Meta), ‘fantasy’ at Poliform by Marcel Wanders and Jaime Hayon for Lladró and patchworked patterns (Missoni Home, Moroso). One of the most dominant new trends at the show saw tables and chairs crafted from rope, the best of these at Moroso, Cappellini and Moooi. Bookshelves, room dividers and library furniture and even an armchair incorporating book storage (at nobody&co.) were in abundance, heralding a backlash against new technology and a resurgence in literary display.

The Swarovski Crystal Palace wowed us, with installations ranging from the beautifully architectural (Zaha Hadid) to wonderfully over the top (Marcel Wanders and Bizazza’s mosaic wall and crystal chandelier showers) as did the Bouroullec Brother’s new carver chair for Kartell, shown in an array of sophisticated jewel tones in the companies trademark high quality polypropylene.

All VMPR clients have received an illustrated trends report as a result of the trip.