ECC: Milan Report – Part 01

Every year, Salone del Mobile is a moment we genuinely look forward to — a chance to reconnect in person with suppliers we’ve worked alongside for many years, and to see how their thinking continues to evolve.

It’s always exciting to walk the stands and discover what’s been quietly developing behind the scenes — new ideas, refined details, and fresh directions that still feel rooted in each brand’s DNA. That sense of continuity paired with progression is what makes it so special.

Below is Part 01 of our round-up of what we saw on the ground this year. For now, we’re hard at work placing orders, with new arrivals expected later in the year. And truthfully, we’ve come away with some exceptional pieces — we can’t wait to share with you properly soon.

Minotti

Minotti’s presentation at Salone del Mobile 2026 carried a familiar sense of architectural precision, but with an even stronger emphasis on atmosphere and spatial storytelling. Rather than presenting pieces in isolation, the brand once again constructed a series of immersive environments where scale, proportion, and materiality worked together to shape a cohesive residential language.

Designed in collaboration with long-standing creative partners including Marcio Kogan / Studio MK27, Nendo, GamFratesi, Hannes Peer and Giampiero Tagliaferri, the collection explored a refined balance between sculptural volume and soft, livable comfort. Generous seating systems, textured surfaces, and muted natural palettes defined the spaces, reinforcing Minotti’s ongoing dialogue between indoor and outdoor living.

What stood out this year was the confidence in restraint — a continuation rather than a reinvention — where each setting felt like a carefully considered extension of contemporary architecture. The result was a presentation that felt less like a trade fair showcase and more like a sequence of lived-in environments, quietly reinforcing Minotti’s position at the intersection of design, craft, and lifestyle.

Gervasoni

Gervasoni's 2026 Salone presentation was one of the week's most quietly confident. Titled Shades of Light and designed by Concetta Giannangeli, the stand was built around the relationship between light and shadow — not as contrast, but as a system of continuous transformation, with surfaces that filter and reflect light to redefine space through what they reveal and what they retain. New highlights included Roberto Lazzeroni's Club collection, Paola Navone's new Loll dining chairs and modular system, Federica Biasi's Samet, and a reissue of Vico Magistretti's R 513 rattan armchair — that last one alone worth the visit. Giannangeli also debuted her own ready-made pieces for the brand, among them the Tapies sideboard with its vertically etched surfaces and the Medley pendant in woven steel wire. Threaded throughout was a new range of water-based stains — not a covering finish, but a treatment that lets the wood's natural structure breathe and emerge. Understated, material-led, and thoroughly Gervasoni.

Linteloo

The Dutch house Linteloo brought a quietly compelling collection to Salone 2026, and it's one that rewards a closer look. The new designs were constructed from different volumes or materials that interlock, support or complement one another — components that don't exist in isolation, but gain meaning in relation to each other. The stand was organised across five distinct settings, each telling its own story: Volta, Bisou and Luc in one corner; Frank, Flux, Tessera and Edge in another; followed by Tembo, Gentle and Cubo; Pasha, Basalt and Arthur; and finally Bisou, Claude, Drop, Charles and Gentle together — a roster of names that speaks to the brand's talent for giving pieces personality without ever resorting to noise. Woven throughout the stand was a considered art programme featuring works by Harmen van der Tuin, Saar Scheerlings, ceramicist Desirée Weerts and others — exactly the kind of curatorial thinking that elevates a furniture presentation into something you actually want to spend time in. Linteloo continues to be one of the most underrated names in the European market: warm, intelligent, and always beautifully made

Flos

Flos delivered one of its most conceptually cohesive presentations, reinforcing its role at the intersection of lighting, architecture and spatial experimentation. Within its Milan showcase, the brand introduced Nocturne, a modular lighting system by Konstantin Grcic that rethinks illumination as an architectural framework rather than a singular object. Built from blown glass and precise structural elements, Nocturne can be composed across wall, floor and suspended configurations, allowing light to shift between focused and ambient states with a quiet, lunar-inspired sensitivity. Alongside it, the MAAP system by Erwan Bouroullec offered a more tactile counterpoint — a soft, wall-based lighting language that treats light as a malleable surface, capable of being arranged and reconfigured to subtly reshape atmosphere and rhythm within a space. Together, the two systems captured a clear direction for Flos: a move toward adaptable, spatially integrated lighting that prioritises mood, materiality and flexibility over static form.

Roda

RODA’s presence at Salone del Mobile 2026 felt like a quiet distillation of its outdoor philosophy — refined, architectural, and deeply rooted in the dialogue between nature and structure. Under the conceptual direction of Piero Lissoni, the “Open Frame” installation presented a restrained modernist landscape where light, greenery, and material rhythm shaped a seamless spatial experience.

Rather than staging product as isolated objects, RODA constructed an atmosphere — a fluid indoor-outdoor continuum where teak, woven straps, and metal elements interacted with soft planting and diffused light. New collections such as DELPHI, VELA, and the modular NIDA system were integrated into this architectural framework, reinforcing the brand’s ongoing commitment to versatility and comfort without sacrificing formal clarity.

What stood out was the balance between innovation and continuity. Iconic systems sat alongside new typologies, creating a coherent language that felt less like a product showcase and more like a lived-in landscape. In a fair increasingly defined by spectacle, RODA’s presentation held its strength in restraint — offering a considered vision of outdoor living as architecture, not furniture.

Paoli Lenti

Paola Lenti offered one of the more introspective presentations of the week with Dialoghi — an immersive installation that prioritised atmosphere over spectacle. Set within its Milan showroom, the exhibition unfolded as a series of quiet conversations between material, colour and space, reinforcing the brand’s longstanding sensitivity to tactility and landscape. Richly layered textiles, softened palettes and fluid, modular forms blurred the line between indoor and outdoor living, creating an environment that felt both grounded and deeply considered. In a year where many leaned toward bold statements, Paola Lenti stood apart through restraint — focusing on longevity, craftsmanship and a more emotional, sensory approach to design that reflects a broader shift across the fair.

Tom Dixon

Tom Dixon arrived at Milan Design Week 2026 with one of the week's most talked-about presentations. Rather than a conventional stand, Dixon and his interior design agency Design Research Studio staged a full takeover of the Mulino Estate — a historic complex originally designed in 1929 by Chiodi and Gio Ponti — presenting it as Mua Mua, a new twelve-room hotel concept where the AW26 collection was integrated directly into functioning bedrooms, lounges and public spaces. Key launches from the AW26 collection included FLARE, a new lighting family in refined borosilicate glass; MELT Nickel, a striking reimagining of their best-selling pendant; and SMASH & SPOT, sculptural occasional tables exploring materiality and form. The estate became a genuine multi-brand destination too: Coalesse and Viccarbe transformed the garage into an immersive workspace-meets-disco installation, while Vispring debuted a new bed and headboard collection developed in collaboration with Dixon's studio.

USM

USM came to Milan 2026 with two very different faces — and both were worth seeking out. The headline presentation was Renaissance of the Real, a multisensory installation developed in partnership with architecture studio Snøhetta and Swiss artist and experience designer Annabelle Schneider, debuting in the garden of Fondazione Luigi Rovati on Corso Venezia. At its core was a textile cocoon — a soft, breathing membrane supported by USM's iconic Haller modular system — where visitors encountered diffused light, subtle sound frequencies and tactile surfaces, with the experience beginning with a warm towel at the entrance as a deliberate gesture of deceleration. The sonic dimension was entrusted to Brooklyn-based audio engineer Devon Turnbull, who hosted daily vinyl listening sessions inside the installation throughout the week — analogue sound as a further antidote to digital overload. On a completely different register, USM also partnered with artist Kasing Lung — creator of the cult Labubu character — for Wonderland of the Monsters, unveiling a new USM Haller furniture collection adorned with Lung's Nordic folklore-inspired illustrations alongside a limited-edition collectible titled Beautiful Thing! Precision engineering meets playfulness — and USM pulled off both with conviction.

Moooi

Moooi's 25th anniversary was never going to go quietly — and it didn't. Returning to Superstudio Più in the Tortona district, where the brand held its very first Milan exhibition, Moooi wrapped the space in raw, rough and reflective silver for an installation titled 25 and Promising — part celebration, part manifesto. Occupying nearly 1,000 square metres and designed by Marcel Wanders himself, the museum-scale exhibition reinterpreted the brand's iconic history while propelling its vision firmly forward. New launches were strong across the board: the Peaks sofa by Yves Béhar reimagines seating as a modular, reconfigurable landscape; the Urchina Light by Studio Roderick Vos floats as a constellation of slender carbon rods inspired by the symmetry of sea urchins; and Paul Cocksedge's Push Light transforms a simple gesture into a soft, reflective glow. There was also a significant strategic announcement — the preview of Powerline, Moooi's first Architectural Lighting collection developed with Intra Lighting, signalling a move from expressive objects into complete lighting ecosystems. In collaboration with choreographer Yoann Bourgeois, the space unfolded as a study in balance, suspension and movement — exactly the kind of sensory world only Moooi can pull off. Silver suits them.