The 4th edition of the Salone del Mobile.Milano Shanghai opens with innovative products and a boom in exhibitor numbers

127 brands representing the best of Italian manufacturing quality, creativity and know-how and narrating the uniqueness of our lifestyle in a strategic market where Made in Italy is seeing a significant rise

The Salone del Mobile.Milano is back in Shanghai for the fourth time. From Wednesday 20th to Friday 22nd November at the SEC - Shanghai Exhibition Center, 127 carefully selected brands will bolster the cultural and commercial ties between Italy and China, showcasing the very best of Made in Italy furnishing. Products in which creativity and invitation meld with quality and craftsmanship, testament to the fact that all-Italian style and “savoir-faire” are acknowledged benchmarks the world over. This exceptional clutch of companies - amplified by 25 new brands, will be ranged over an overall 8,000 net square metres of exhibition space - showcasing the value of a sector capable of tackling international market challenges head on, and those presented by China in particular, to the more than 20,000 extremely high profile expected visitors.

Claudio Luti, President of the Salone del Mobile had this to say: “The Salone del Mobile.Milano Shanghai is a strategic international event in which we continue to believe and which excites us just as much as the very first edition, because of the key role it is assuming in this part of the world as a unique and distinctive platform for Made in Italy. Over the last four years, we have invested in and worked on involving a large number of brands capable not just of best representing the quality, creativity, innovation and research underpinning our manufacturing, but also of rendering something extra - our vision, our lifestyle. We’ve been successful. I am convinced that this edition will achieve the objectives demanded by a rapidly expanding market that has high expectations of us, and which recognises precisely the design, experimental and productive savoir-faire that makes Made in Italy famous all over the world.”

The three days of design at the Salone del Mobile.Milano Shanghai consists of a journey into that “Italian savoir-faire” that, now more than ever, constitutes an unmissable opportunity for Chinese professionals attracted by our ability to interpret the modern way of life through sophisticated and intelligent creativity and tailored research. So as to respond more effectively to the demands of these increasingly evolved and knowledge able consumer demands, the event will have more of a contemporary bias, with two-thirds of companies in the Design category (products that encapsulate functionality, innovation and a clear stylistic hallmark) and one third brands in the xLux category (products that are a balance of classical elegance and modern appeal).

In the firm belief that the Salone del Mobile.Milano Shanghai acts as a gauge for Italian furnishing and design opportunities in China and is a privileged point from which the dynamics of the Asian market can be observed, Emanuele Orsini, President of Federlegno Arredo Eventi said: “Now into its fourth edition, the Salone del Mobile.Milano Shanghai has become the acknowledged leading showcase in China for superlative Italian design, bringing Italian excellence to a market that is showing its growing appreciation for Italian creativity and innovation. Particular thanks are due to the companies that have believed in an event that has grown year on year thanks to its highly skilled organisers and to the support of the Italian Trade Agency ICE, its president Carlo Maria Ferro and the Italian Embassy in the People's Republic of China. These four years have seen our manufacturing system successfully navigate a complex but stimulating market thanks to a number of drivers that see the integration of the trade fair and the relationships with leading figures on the Italo-Chinese cultural and political scene as the culmination of intense promotional Made in Italy design activities.”

The talent-promoting space, SaloneSatellite Shanghai, will be back for the fourth time, laden with expectations and visions. 53 young designers and students from the leading universities and design schools will be showcasing projects that blend meaning, innovation, form and function in a reflection on a future that poses huge challenges such as recycling, the responsible and alternative use of materials and technological research. In Shanghai too, SaloneSatellite is being driven by the theme that shaped the Milan edition, and therefore the theme of this edition is FOOD as a DESIGN OBJECT, intended to spur young designers into harnessing design as a vehicle for ideas and a generator of intelligent, responsible and practicable projects for the food system of the future. As in previous years, as part of the SaloneSatellite Shanghai Award, a sectorwide jury of professionals will select the top 4 projects, whose designers will be invited to SaloneSatellite 2020, during the Salone del Mobile in Milan from 21st to 26th April.

The Salone del Mobile.Milano Shanghai also provides an opportunity to take stock of the sector and its progress, and promote new relationships that will give concrete support to the synergic development of the furnishing sectors in Italy and in China and generate opportunities for cultural debate, inspiration and training. The Master Classes are there to do just this, with their successful programme of meetings, discussion and reflection led by three internationally acclaimed Italian architects - Rodolfo Dordoni, Patricia Urquiola and Ferruccio Laviani - in conversation with an equal number of gifted Chinese architects: Li Hu, Zhao Yang and Chen Fei Bo. The contemporary situation of excellent Italian savoir faire will be offset by the experience of the Chinese designers, who are making great strides in innovation and quality in order to come up with original products and new housing models for China for the coming years. In this perspective, the synergy with the Italian design system can provide an effective instrument of differentiation within the context of an increasingly competitive market.

The cultural offering will be further boosted by a multimedia installation conceived by Davide Rampello and designed by the architect Alessandro Colombo, DE-SIGNO. The art of Italian design before and after Leonardo, which celebrates the life and legacy of the eclectic Italian Renaissance genius. As part of the celebrations marking the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, the Salone del Mobile.Milano was also keen to pay homage to him in China with a compelling narration of his life, his studies, his works and his relationship to contemporary Italian design. The Salone del Mobile.Milano also intended the installation to underscore the importance of the past and present cultural ties between Italy and China.

Source: Salone del Mobile
Read more news related Salone del Mobile.Milano published at infurma
Visit the Fair & Event calendar on Infurma