OPINION / NOLAN GILES
Play fair
Summer has arrived and my inbox is suddenly full of invitations to events across Europe. From collectable-design showcase Nomad in St Moritz, which kicks off tomorrow, to September events in Vienna, Copenhagen and Stockholm, it’s safe to say that furniture-making, craft and industrial creativity are being experienced again in the format that suits them best: real-life, physical events.
One such fair that stands head and shoulders above the rest in the design calendar is Milan’s Salone del Mobile. Having been postponed from April, it will now take place from 5 to 10 September in a revised format. And while most fans, journalists and independent designers are simply pleased that it’s going ahead in 2021, this revision has caused a bit of a headache for many of the brands taking part.
For 60 years, Salone’s all-important trade fair component has been where producer-buyer relationships are forged and furniture deals to kit out the world’s biggest architecture projects are made. With this in mind, the politics of furniture brands maintaining prime positions in Salone’s sea of booths has always been chaotic. Success in this arena is seemingly only granted through years of loyalty to the event and rather large investments (upwards of €1m per year) on booths.
With Salone 2021 being a last-minute affair – and one that might be tricky for buyers from important markets such as Asia to attend – the old ways of organising its trade fair have been thrown out the window in favour of a new format brazenly dubbed Supersalone. It will take place at the same site but with a completely different layout. Italian architect Stefano Boeri is curating the event and is coming at it from something of a neutral perspective, not being a direct contributor to the furniture industry. Brands will pay to be there in a smaller set-up and the conversation around who goes where and why is becoming an increasingly difficult one.
As an objective spectator, it’s easier to take some positives from the scramble, which (as most Italian events tend to do) will inevitably shake itself out into an enjoyable experience. First, a temporary restructuring will hopefully breed a bit of creativity in a space that has felt fairly stagnant in recent years. It will also bring some energy to a trade event that’s increasingly overlooked in favour of more freewheeling Salone showcases in Milan. And finally, all the fuss being made about the new format, largely from the Italian players, leaves no doubt that furniture-making is one of the world’s most closely nurtured trades and an industry that will remain robust and full of creativity in the years to come.