Milan Design Week 2022: Key trends, insights and interviews

WGSN Interiors brings you the key trends, insights and interviews from Milan Design Week 2022.

Hear from WGSN experts, designers and critics our special four-part series, which covers four interior design trends: Nature First, Updated Icons, Inclusivity and Wellbeing and Craft Renaissance.

Tune into our podcast special to gain insights from Milan Fashion Week, from on-the-ground interviews with emerging designers such as Krill Design and the team behind the Hugging Chair, to chats with design world luminaries Faye Toogood, Jonathan Anderson and Tom Dixon.

Nature first

“Prada Frames held an amazing symposium – three days worth of talks on multi-species design that were completely full. Studio Swine showed Forest Tales at the Triennale. In collaboration with the American Hardwood Export Council, they showed 22 new furniture pieces displayed around a ‘mountain’ made from the packing crates the pieces were transpired in. They invited designers from every continent to participate and the results were extremely innovative. One on the most elegant solutions was the Thought Bubble rocking chair by Thai designer Nong Chotipatoomwan.” 
– Lisa White, Director of Interiors, WGSN

Updated icons

“The Bird Chaise is a much older design than 20 years, which was originally galvanised steel trunking, but was made with polyurethane foam that is mainly in upholstery and is not a great material. So we’ve been wanting to find a substitute for a really long time. A small Danish company has been collecting eelgrass, which is a waste material that collects on the beaches in Denmark. 

“It’s been used historically occasionally for thatching roofs, but this company has found a way to compress it and use it as architectural insulation and they’re trying to make it work as an upholstery substitute. We wanted to show it in its raw state and we’ve made a sculptural object using the foam.”
– Tom Dixon, Designer

Inclusivity and wellbeing

“It was really that desire to dress everyone and anyone irrespective of gender, age or size as well… I believe it’s the future. That’s not to say that men want to wear women’s clothes and women want to wear men’s clothes – it’s not as simple as that. But always defining things by gender is not relevant for us and inclusivity is absolutely essential.”
– Faye Toogood, Designer

Craft renaissance

“I was particularly impressed with the fact that the entire Palazzo Litta was taken over by craft and that was everything from basketry craft to Doppia Firma, which showed such a wide range of craft, from marquetry to glassware to this amazing radiator made using traditional Japanese lacquer. Then also the Craftmania show was fantastic, with a tech-driven angle. I really feel that the idea of craft intelligence, of craft tech, is set to become a super interesting trend.”
– Lisa White, Director of Interiors, WGSN

To hear the full conversation, tune into episode 53-56 of our Create Tomorrow podcast on Anchor, Apple and Spotify.