Art and Design Inspiration

Salone del Mobile 2023: Our Top 10 Designers

Salone del Mobile 2023

Salone del Mobile 2023

Our Top 10 Designers of The Salone del Mobile 2023

Manu Crotti

Manu Crotti is an artist based in Crema, Italy. She has always linked her work with memories, represented by small objects, images, and memorabilia from her travels. She casts several layers of epoxy resin to enclose precious memories, creating the illusion of a floating collage. This technique is used to create functional products, such as tables, cupboards, mirrors, and room dividers. Since 2011, Manu Crotti has worked with Galleria Rossana Orlandi, showcasing her innovative products and designs in exhibitions worldwide.

Salone del Mobile designer Manu Crotti

Vibrazioni estive low table by Manu Crotti

Mingyu Xu Studio

Mingyu Xu, head designer at Mingyu Xu Studio in London, re-imagines furniture and lighting with cultural heritage and techniques. He began researching bamboo weaving in 2016, aiming to refresh ancient techniques and create innovative products.

Salone del Mobile - Mingyu Xu Studio's Parallel Bamboo Chandelier

Parallel Bamboo Chandelier by Mingyu Xu Studio

Lucia Massari

Born in Venice, Italy, Lucia Massari’s practice incorporates collaborations with local artisans, spanning product design, installations, and performance. For Salone, Lucia collaborated with Murano glassmakers Barbini Specchi Veneziani to create a playful ‘Candy-Like’ lamp collection.

Toppings Light by Lucia Massari

Toppings Light by Lucia Massari

Misha Kahn

Misha Kahn’s work combines design and sculpture, exploring a wide range of media in both large and small scale. His process flows between hand sketching, watercolor painting, and clay sculpting. For the 2023 Salone del Mobile Milan, Misha created 50 mystical book covers displayed at Apartamento Bookshop, some in cast foam, others with alien-like blobs.

Book cover design - Misha Khan

Chris Wolston

Chris Wolston transforms functional objects into artful and whimsical fabricated work. Based in New York, Wolston’s work ranges from furniture and lighting to installation and sculpture. He effortlessly blends traditional techniques and materials with contemporary innovation, creating original postmodern design. Seen at Doppia Firma at Salone del Mobile 2023 is his Twiggy Chair, which was designed by Wolston to impersonate the character of the humans that sit on it.

Twiggy Chair by Chris Wolston - Salone del Mobile

Twiggy Chair by Chris Wolston

Jonathan Anderson

Jonathan Anderson, the creative director of Loewe, returns to basics with new designs featured at Salone del Mobile. He focuses on a humble home object, the chair, adding a modern twist. His pieces are decorated in unusual ways, some with ribbons, others wrapped in fur, without hindering their functionality. Jonathan, originally from Northern Ireland, is the founder of JW Anderson.

Loewe Chair by Jonathan Anderson - Salone del Mobile

Loewe Chair by Jonathan Anderson

Alberto Caliri

Alberto Caliri incorporates unusual shapes, bursts of color, and irony, creating one of the most memorable debuts at Salone del Mobile 2023. As Missoni’s Creative Director, Caliri designs a surreal setting using pouf seats in a large room, echoing his funky patterns.

Poufs by Alberto Caliri - Salone del Mobile

Poufs by Alberto Caliri

Jonathan Bocca

Italian sculptor Jonathan Bocca crafts tactile furniture and lighting from mixed media, using paper-mache, metal, and wood. He views his sculptures as creature-objects, aiming to rethink the relationship between person and environment, making it more intimate.
Furniture Sculptures by Jonathan Bocca

Furniture Sculptures by Jonathan Bocca

Xavier Lust

Xavier is a sculptor and furniture designer based in Brussels. He is  known for his unique techniques to shaping metal into furniture. His Virgo piece is structure which becomes a bookcase that plays with asymmetry. The sculptural form of Virgo makes it usable both on the wall and, above all, as centre-room. Virgo was shown as part of Driade’s stand in an impressive and eye-catching display, with other playful, contemporary design pieces as part of Salone del Mobile 2023.

Virgo bookshelf by Xavier Lust

Virgo bookshelf by Xavier Lust

Raw Color Studio

Christoph Brach and Daniera ter Haar are the creators of Raw Color who blend the fields of Graphic Design, Photography and Product Design at their Eindhoven based studio.

The exhibited the Loop and Link sofas that evoke a feeling of nostalgia for childhood’s past with their emphasis on creating an organic and comforting environment with their Neotenic Design.

Neotenic design is an innovative approach to creating interiors that creates a positive emotion response through the combination of soft lines, sweet colors, and plush materials in curved rounded and cylindric forms within furniture.

Vibrant Loop sofas by Raw Color Studio

Vibrant Loop sofas by Raw Color Studio

The Importance of Functional Design

To sum up the top designers showing work at the Salone del Mobile 2023 exhibition, we see the common thread connecting product functionality with art to create innovative and visually striking products.

Similarly to these designers, Sonya, the lead designer and founder of Sonya Winner of connecting Rug Studio, creates ‘floor art’ in the form of luxury rugs, seen in our Vibrant Contemporary Rug Collection. Sonya carefully considers the needs and preferences of customers, ensuring our contemporary rugs are durable, long-lasting, and comfortable to walk on while celebrating modern design!

Lichen Rug Grey Organic Modern Carpet

The Lichen Greige Rug by Sonya Winner

The Importance of Colourful Design

Many of the designers featured above use colour to communicate a message or transform an ordinary object into the extraordinary. For example, Mingyu Xu’s selective colour integration with the material of bamboo transforms his products into a new modern variation of the traditional bamboo weaving technique. The same applies to Jonathan Anderson’s chairs, where he adds vibrant colours and textures to a simple object with a simple function, and completely re-invents them into marvellous pieces.

Color plays a crucial role in transforming a product or design by influencing the way people perceive and interact with it. It evokes different emotions, creates various moods, and conveys unique meanings, making it an essential element of design in Sonya Winner’s modern rugs. This power to transform an environment, space, or room is also demonstrated in the luxury rugs designed by Sonya Winner.

Rainbow Colourful Luxury Wave Rug Carpet

The Wave Rug by Sonya Winner

If you’re feeling inspired by the beautiful modern designs on show at the Salone del Mobile 2023 and would like some ideas on how you can bring contemporary functionality into your home, take a look at our Vibrant Contemporary Rug Collection and introduce a luxury rug to your home.

With designer rugs suitable for any space, try out a selection of our modern rug designs and see how they look in your own home with our free visualisation service! Just contact us directly or use the easy to follow ‘Visualize’ button along the banner at the top of the page.

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