Milan Design Week 2024: 3 Brand Approaches to Create Meaningful Projects

Plus, recommendations on what to read, watch, and listen after MDW2024.

With more than a thousand of projects showcased at brands’ boutiques, palazzos, and cultural centres, it seemed like almost everyone among the business community wanted to be in Milan to present a new product, entertain their clients, or just to get into the conversation because of the the city’s Design Week’s reputation as the number 1 design event in the world.

However, as the Business of Fashion Editor in Chief Imran Amed wrote in his weekly letter on the Milan Salone del Mobile, not all projects seemed to be authentic and were about “driving design or craft or innovation in a meaningful way.”

So, what distinguishes forward-looking initiatives from the ones that can be easily forgotten? After visiting multiple brand events during the Milan Design Week, here’s my take on making a real project with HeArt, which brings value to the development of the design world (or the creative world, in general), rather than just being there where everyone is. 

#1 Inspiring your audience to discover new names or the unknown sides of well established design talents (and moreover, supporting those designers by giving them funds, access to new techniques, or to new geographies to drive imagination):

Due to their PR super powers, initiatives from the world-famous brands attract a lot of media and public attention. So, when they engage in collaborations or launch projects with emerging talents, this usually gets noticed and brings visibility to the new names. 

During the Milan Design Week 2024, Dolce & Gabbana presented the second volume of the GenD – Generation Design – project curated by the Italian design advisor Federica Sala. Invited by the brand, 11 young designers from Austria, China, South Korea, Ghana, Mexico, etc. traveled around Italy learning about traditional crafts in different regions, which they later used in their objects. 

In his works, Mingyu Xu from China combined Sicilian patterns, Venetian glass, and Chinese bamboo techniques.

The Brussels-based artist duo Touche-Touche created a seating area Me Terre Or inspired by the Etna volcano, which is meant to be more than just a furniture piece, but rather a meeting place of souls. 

At the underground space of the Palazzo Citterio in Brera, the Spanish luxury brand Loewe showcased 24 artisanal lamps made by designers and artists from Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, the Netherlands, the UK, and South Africa. 

The British artist Anthea Hamilton’s lamp was inspired by the image of kimonos and the works of the late Italian legend Gaetano Pesce.

Hafu Matsumoto from Japan made a lamp with soft bamboo strips, which were holding the light inside, and in a poetic way, the name of the work is translated as “in search of a heart”. 

#2 Stimulating intellectual debates and bringing together world visionaries by organizing conferences and talks 

For the third year in a row, Prada joined forces with the Italian research-based design studio FormaFantasma to organize the Prada Frames multidisciplinary symposium during the Milan Design Week. This time, it focused on the topic of Being Home, “not just as a source of comfort, but rather as a shelter and an infrastructure of services.”  Held at the real hidden gem in the center of Milan – the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum, the event brought together prominent authors, researchers, architects, artists, designers and activists. 

The Prada Fames sessions took place in different rooms of the 19th century house full of 16th century artefacts due to the passion of its original owners – Bagatti Valsecchi brothers.

The talks were in dialogue with the type of the room, there were no slides, and guests could refer to special booklets with the images selected by speakers. The prominent design researcher and author Alice Rawsthorn provided a foreword to each session.

If you want to relive the experience or to know what it was like because you couldn’t make it there, the recordings of all the sessions can now be listened as part of KoozArch audio series on Apple Music and Spotify.

Another event from Prada Group’s brand Miu Miu wasn’t directly linked to design, but it has demonstrated once again that Miuccia Prada prefers intellectual ways of audience engagement. 

Curated by the Italian researcher, writer and author of “Ragazze perbene”, Olga Compofreda, the two-day Miu Miu Literary Club was held at the building of the Circolo Filologico Milanese / Filological Circle of Milan, one of the oldest cultural associations in the city, founded in 1872. 

The event featured discussions on the Italian female writers Sibilla Aleramo and Alba De Céspedes as well as poetry and music performances.

The idea was born when in September 2023, Olga Compofreda published an article in the Domani newspaper on the Italian female writers of the twentieth century who were unfairly forgotten, Miuccia Prada read the article, and soon the Miu Miu team reached out to the author about the inaugural edition of the brand’s literary club. 

All guests of the event received the copies of Aleramo’s A Woman / Una donna (published in 1906) and De Céspedes’ Forbidden Notebook / Quaderno Proibito (published in 1952) to continue their literary immersion at home. The discussions featuring contemporary female writers (among whom there were Jhumpa Lahri, Sheila Heiti, Selby Wynn Schwarz, Xiaolu Guo and others) can be watched online on the Miu Miu website and YouTube channel. 

The Swiss appliances manufacturer V-Zug once again joined forces with the lifestyle magazine Monocle and presented a series of breakfast discussions on timeless design with international designers at Pinacoteca di Brera’s magnificent Brandaise Library. 

Not actually a talk or a summit, but still a project aimed to get you thinking: Google’s Vice President of Hardware Design, Ivy Ross and the company’s design team collaborated with the LA-based art+research lab Chromasonic on the “Making Sense of Color” project at Garage 21 to let its visitors explore the sound of color and the color of the sound through a series of spaces with immersive installations. 

By the way, together with Susan Magsamen, Ivy Ross co-authored Your Brain on Art book, which explores the influence of art activities on brains and bodies, and through this – on public health and communities.

#3 Celebrating a product in an artistic way while sparking the audience’s curiosity 

Saint Laurent, in collaboration with Ginori 1735, re-issued a collection of 12 hand-painted porcelain plates created by the famous Italian architect and designer Gio Ponti for Villa Plachard, Venezuela in 1957. These were exhibited as part of a grand installation in the courtyard of the Chiostri ai Simpliciano, an architectural gem in the heart of Brera, about which not so many people actually know. 

 

Nespresso brought visibility to the launch of new paper-based recyclable capsules in Italy by turning a tiny newspaper stand in Milan’s Brera district into a pastel hue kiosk with coffee and a curated selection of design magazines developed by the Italy-born but Amsterdam-based Studio Ossidiana. No logos, just a paper based structure, which made you stop, take a look and sip coffee while choosing your next design read. 

In collaboration with the interiors design magazine Appartamento, the Finnish brand marimekko reimagined a traditional Milanese café into the Unikko bar with the walls, floor, and tableware featuring the brand’s iconic print, which this year celebrates its 60th anniversary. 

 

Gucci presented a special project named Gucci Design Ancora at its flagship store on Monte Napoleone, featuring five icons of Italian design from Acerbis, FontanaArte, Tacchini, Venini, cc-tapis re-edited in Rosso Ancora, the burgundy hue introduced by the brand’s Creative Director Sabato de Sarno as he launched Gucci’s new chapter. The objects were placed in the acid green spaced designed by the Spanish architect Guillermo Santomà. 

 

However, there was also another design object in Rosso Ancora showed during the Milan Design Week as part of the Second Life exhibition in Piazza San Fedele. The project was launched to raise money after the devastating storm of July 2023, which left more than 5,000 fallen trees in Milan. Designers participating in the project gave to some of them a new life and created wooden totems, which were supposed to be sold at a charity auction benefiting the Milan for Trees initiative, dedicated to reforesting areas impacted by the storm.

For me, this example presents another opportunity for starting a meaningful project with heart – the one that uses the power of design for social good. In the future, it would be great to see more brands taking this into consideration. 

A presto!