Design as Dialogue: A New Language Emerges during Milan Design Week

Milan Design Week, in the form we recognize today, is the result of a long cultural, economic, and symbolic evolution that began in 1961 with the founding of the Salone del Mobile. Originally conceived as a platform to support and promote the Italian furniture industry, the Salone gradually became the catalyst for an urban-cultural ecosystem with international scope. From the 1980s onward, the explosion of Fuorisalone transformed the fair from a centralized event into a city-wide phenomenon where design became not just product, but narrative, performance, and—at times—ideological positioning.

If we look back at MDW through the lens of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, its past becomes a clear case study in the workings of the cultural field and the accumulation of symbolic capital. Especially in previous decades, the week served as a highly codified arena in which designers, companies, curators, gallerists, and architects didn’t just compete for market visibility, but for cultural legitimacy: the recognition, that is, of occupying an authoritative space in the design discourse. Participation itself—whether as exhibitor or spectator—became a marker of status and belonging.

Post-pandemic, however, the scene has become more fractured—and revealing. On one hand, MDW has undeniably contributed to expanding the boundaries of design, making it a hybrid practice able to engage with art, technology, performance, and activism. But on the other, it has increasingly fed a superficial aestheticization of creativity, where the spectacle often outweighs the content. Design is more and more often proposed not as a response to real, contemporary needs, but as visual language for lifestyle marketing—polished, consumable, and endlessly shareable.

This dynamic has been amplified by luxury industries, which—armed with powerful branding and pre-assembled cultural imagery—have entered the design field en masse. What was once fertile ground for architects, theorists, and experimental practitioners has, in many cases, been colonized by brand extensions that, while coherent with corporate narratives, lack the conceptual depth, emotional resonance, and critical engagement that design had cultivated over time. The result? A city saturated with events that resemble advertising campaigns more than curatorial projects—where the value of the experience is often reduced to waiting in line for a tote bag or collecting limited-edition merch resold at absurd prices on second-hand platforms.

And yet, from this excess, something else is beginning to take shape. In response to this commercialization, a new wave of curators, independent galleries, and emerging designers is reclaiming space on the fringes of the official circuit. These are projects that don’t fear marginality, because they are more interested in autonomy. They speak to a different idea of design—fresher, more experimental, unburdened by market demands or stylistic dogmas. A design that privileges dialogue over spectacle, intimacy over reach. A design that doesn’t necessarily want to sell you something—but has something to say.

Perhaps it’s precisely from these hybrid, vulnerable, but courageous spaces that a new idea of Design Week can be born: less showcase, more laboratory; less spectacle, more substance.

And speaking of laboratories and substance, Design Week 2025 didn’t disappoint. Between Alcova, Good Selection, Deoron, Convey, Comune, and many others, the city became a tapestry of stories, gestures, and shared tensions. A design week that moved beyond product displays, offering instead rituals, reflections, and radical positions.

 One of the most powerful rituals was at Alcova, where the installation 18 Drops of Sweat by Warm Weekend, Robinson Guillermet & Mathias Palazzi stood out.  Originally built at La Station — Gare des Mines in Paris in summer 2024, this collectively-constructed hammam was not only an architectural intervention, but a social and emotional one. At La Station, it functioned as both a hygiene station for young refugees and a public hammam for visitors. Here in Milan, it arrived charged with its original ethos: reclaiming the act of collective bathing as a space of care, community, and healing. Built from reused materials—textiles, bricks, tiles, and metal—it demonstrates how a thoughtful design approach can revalorize discarded matter. But beyond material, the project is about reintroducing public rituals in urban life, and quietly asking: what if we returned to bathing together?

Images 1 and 2 from left, courtesy of Warm Weekend, pics by @camillelemonnier_ and @marlou.neon | Image 3 on the right courtesy of Alcova, photo by @piergiorgiosorgetti

Another exciting installation at Alcova was Design Signals Snapshot by FABER. The exhibition explored how design shapes narratives, materials, and systems, connecting industrial history with emerging technologies and urgent contemporary issues. Featuring works ranging from physical products to video and graphic storytelling, it offered a multi-voiced perspective that included not only designers, but also researchers and workers.

Images 1 and 2 courtesy of Alcova, photo by @piergiorgiosorgetti

At Good Selection, the tone shifted but the enchantment remained. André Jacob’s candleholders looked like relics from another world—domestic totems imbued with something quiet and sacred. Aeditto’s lamps, with their soft and fluid silhouettes, seemed to echo a theme running across this edition: a renewed affection for the sensory, the tactile, the gentle. Tim Teven’s “Tube” series—chairs and benches reduced to clean, potent lines—embodied a brutalist tenderness, showing how structure and sentiment can coexist.

Images 1 and 2 courtesy of André Jacob, photos by @tom_dagnas and @alexandreguirkinger | Image 3 on the right courtesy of Aeditto

Image 1 on the left courtesy of Aeditto | Image 2 courtesy of André Jacob, photo by @tom_dagnas | Image 3 courtesy of Tim Teven, photo by @pierrecastig

Image courtesy of Tim Teven, photo by @pierrecastig

At Deoron, in a rawer, more underground setting, the experience turned sonic. Matéo Garcia presented a high-end audio system crafted in radical anodized aluminum with active multi-amplification. The space was dark, but the sound was crystalline—and the presence of a spinning Thuono turntable gave the installation a near-liturgical aura. There was something beautifully anachronistic about it: analog warmth in a hyper-digital week.

Images 1 and 2 courtesy of Thuono, photos by @g.i.a.c.o.m.o.b.i.a.n.c.o | Image 3 courtesy of Matéo Garcia

Finally, at Comune—an increasingly vital hub for emerging voices—a name to remember emerged: Lucas Cambier, a young designer from Toulon. His “L4 Stool” was the opposite of grandstanding: a simple, necessary form, executed with care. But behind that apparent simplicity was a quiet power. Proof that even in a sea of noise, you can still speak softly—and be heard.

Images courtesy of Lucas Cambier

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Words: Simone Lorusso