Three Layer Cake

Milan is a crazy fair.  A couple hundred thousand square meters of exhibition space (a couple million square feet), over 1300 exhibitors, 200,000 visitors...and that's just the Fair.  In the city events are spread throughout town, and if you're using public transportation well...  Plan to stay the whole week or get selective.  The biggest question I think people were asking themselves as they walked around was whether their camera batteries would run out before their feet!

In this summary I will present one sample of a handful of predominant themes, and over the course of the next few weeks, starting in mid-May, will fill in each theme with more examples to demonstrate fuller trends:  Moving East, orange, rope, oversized, white, fish, mesh, paper, assymetry, fur/hair, femininity, spoons, crochet/weaving, a type of chair I don't know how to characterize...

It's hard to see each Fair with renewed enthusiasm by the time Milan comes around, as it is the fifth of the season for me.  I can't say that there is one sure thing at every fair that gets my mind calculating how long I'll have to save up in order to have it, but this year there sure was.  It was all on the Moroso stand.  The Doshi Levien pieces for Moroso, in particular the pillows, in my opinion, were show-stoppers, maybe for the whole season.  In many ways they sum up several recurring themes presented this year:  a triumph of non-Western styles, vibrant orange and vibrant colors contrasting with black/dark colors, embroidery...  (Below Charpoi day bed in orange-red, and pillows, for Moroso by Doshi Levien -- it took two days to do the embroidery detail on the shoe!)  Each pillow is worth a thousand words about Jonathan and Nipa.

    (Yes, that's Tord's vase for Transglass!)

 Micado stool by Tomita Kazuhiko for Moroso