iSaloni 2014 best exhibitors: From extreme luxury to simplicity

iSaloni 2014 already started and it’s unavoidable to check out all the latest trend designs that really count until 13th April. Professionals from all the world gather toghether in Milan, where design is celebrated until the last minute of the fair. Italian stilnovo style was never as magnificient as this year at iSaloni design stage where new trends are unveiled… and vary from extreme luxury to simplicity.

Luxury brands are adored by their followers. They offer their clients status and style and they know they are getting what they paid for.

Boca do Lobo is amongst the top luxury brands of the world, and the quality and exclusivity of the events the design brand takes part of, as well as the numerous distinctions it’s been granted, attest for it. After Maison&Objet, in Paris and Singapore, and BaselWorld – the most luxurious event in the world – Boca do Lobo’s team is arriving at Milan for another successful exhibition at the prestigious ISaloni.

Boca do Lobo’s stand in HALL6 F56 is a world of pure luxury. Designed as a gallery, the focus of the space is to exhibit the top luxury brand’s pieces of furniture in their true essence: as artworks. The idea is to celebrate high-end design and haute craftsmanship in a hyper-luxury environment specially created to give each piece its own leading role.

At the same time, the stand gives the visitor a sense of entering inside a Palace, with its high and skillfully elaborated ceilings and exclusive furnishings. And Boca do Lobo’s partners will once again contribute to this magical environment: Koziel with its luxurious and sophisticated wallpapers and Castlebel with its unique home fragrances. Inside, in a private meeting room, visitors will be served a Marriage Frères French tea.

This is the first time all the four collections of the top luxury brand will be presented to the world, including the brand new Private Collection, composed of luxurious home safes and exclusive table top objects like cigar humidors, watch winders and jewelry cases. About the collection, Marco Costa, Boca do Lobo‘s Head Designer, highlights the “skilful manual work by talented craftsmen, combined with a contemporary design which challenges the noblest materials and the wisest hand of Portugal. Timelessness persists, as well as Emotional Design and the ability of creating pieces which tell a story of their own.”

USA are joining the group of top luxury brands in iSaloni. Koket present Guilty Pleasures Collection, the Janet Morais’s new luxury furniture line in HALL 14 C45. Lush velvets, black crystals, gold accents and more details will seduce you. As Janet says, it will be the “celebration of artistry, originality, and the many exquisite treasures of the world around us”. She also add: “Consumer expectations are changing; they are becoming more and more design savvy and looking for something different. There is a tremendous market for commercial brands so I felt that if a customer can afford something special and expensive, then there should be exquisite handwork and craftsmanship involved to make them feel that their money was well spent. Backed by centuries of tradition European craftsmanship sets the tone for luxury. Major European brands may offer modern on the money products- but there is a commitment to keeping the savoir fair and craftsmanship alive. I wanted the same for KOKET. Only in Europe can one walk the streets and stumble across a small studio where un grand metier practices his craft”.

Nevertheless, If top luxury has predominated for years in furniture construction and materials, today we are seeing a trend towards a frugal use of resources that represents the birth of a new style, ‘pauperism’, not the only progeny of the crisis we continue to face, and sire of a new ethos of chaste, sometimes severe product design, moderate in the adoption of figurative referents.

Design become elementary and structure simple in the work of Daniele Bortotto and Giorgia Zanellato, two young veterans of the SaloneSatellite who present La Serenissima for Moroso , a seating collection inspired by the high waters of Venice that echoes the raised gangways used to combat flooding, upholstered with moiré fabrics made by Rubelli.

A ‘dietary regimen’ that design seems to have imposed on itself, focusing on the functional and translating into lightweight, exposed frames and thinner padding, as in Zinta by Lievore Altherr Molina for Arper or Bench System byFrancesco Rota for Lapalma.

At Lema you’ll be able to discover both, the extreme luxury and simplicity. Minimalism, eternal by definition, finds new vitality in the wake of this ‘pauperist’ trend. One need only look at the Anin stool by the young Spaniard David Lopez Quinoces for Living or the Orfeo bed byFerruccio Laviani for Lema.

Definitely, Lema is one of the top italian brands of the moment, and you’ll be able to find it at Hall 7 stand B15 at EuroCucina. Due to successful partnership with vintage lamps brand Delightfull Lema had brought luxurious classic tones to their stand with Delightfull’s Duke floor lamp and the golden bright of Matheny suspension.

In iSaloni 2014 there’s space as well for ‘Alpine design’, furniture that a shepherd might place in his hut, conjugated in solid wood dowels with exposed joints, or in milking stools upholstered in fabric or hide paired with soft sofas like curly Mongolian sheepskin by Paola Navone for Baxter.

Or the the debute of the year in iSaloni 2014 – Philippe Starck with the Aunts&Uncles collection for Kartell as well as for noble Brabbu collection in Hall 14 C45.

Brabbu selection from left to the right:

SEQUOIA center table
LURAY side table
KOI II dining table (awarded at IMM Cologne 2014 as Interior Design Innovation Award)

iSaloni 2014 proves – the phenomenon of re-editions continues, bringing back masterpieces of the past to the spotlight, or inspiring new production; dense materials like ceramic, or porous ones like cork and concrete as well as plastic concut the stands in iSaloni 2014. Chromatic trends are topped by copper, in shades of pink and violet (Radiant Orchid, Pantone 18-3224, is the color 2014), or oxidized in colors ranging from petroleum green to the various tones of mold, fungus and mud.