The Milan show happened last month and it seemed like there was some life back in the industry. After a down year last year, creativity as well as ticket sales were up. An article in the NY times discusses some of the details and even highlights the favorite pieces from the show.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/garden/22milan.html

“Economic conditions have eased since then, and this year manufacturers seemed, if not more confident, at least less nervous. The visitor count rose to 335,354, according to the fair’s organizer, Cosmit, and many exhibitors acknowledged with relief that business was better than it had been a year ago. “There were signs of improvement,” said Rolf Fehlbaum, the chairman of Vitra, the Swiss furniture group. “And dealers were willing to order.”

There weren’t too many dominant trends to be seen, but a few were apparent. “Not surprisingly, there weren’t many clear trends or stellar products. The most interesting development was the emergence of what could be called superleggera — super light — style. Fluid, lithe and angular, these pieces looked like technocratic takes on the 1950s work of Italian designers like Franco Albini and Gio Ponti, one of whose chairs was called Superleggera. Typical were the chairs by Martino Gamper, Konstantin Grcic and Jerszy Seymour for Magis, as well as one by Industrial Facility for Mattiazzi, and the elegant copper objects by Aldo Bakker for Thomas Eyck. Other examples included Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s spindly aluminum tables for Magis and their Lighthouse light for Established & Sons.”

We didn’t get a chance to go this year, but hope to next year. As far as modern furniture goes, this is definitely he place to be.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 at 12:54 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous, State of the Industry Address, The Joys of Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.