The Best of Milan Design Week 2025, Part I: Our Favorite Collection Debuts

For reasons that didn’t involve caring for an infant or hunkering down during a global pandemic, I voluntarily skipped the furniture fair in Milan this month for the first time in my two decades as a design editor. It’s strange but not entirely unpleasant to watch something so familiar and beloved unfold from afar. From my perch in Brooklyn, I could see almost every collection or installation that I needed to see scroll by on Instagram; I could endure a short-lived FOMO about the delicious pastas I wasn’t eating, or the DJ set by Bjork that took place in the garden of the Trienniale; and I could sense the point, late in the week, when everyone tired of the whole thing. Monica was on the ground in Italy, and she’ll have her take tomorrow, but in general, she reported that the crowds that have made previous years so insufferable seem to have dispersed, even as the tech companies, car brands, and fashion houses have made even deeper inroads into design. (This year, in addition to the usual contributions from Loewe, Hermes, and Gucci, I heard good things about Valextra’s collaboration with Zaven, Jil Sander’s reimagination of Thonet, Loro Piana’s louche, ’70s-inspired Dimore scenography, and The Row’s detour into housewares.)

But while those things were fun, what resonated with us the most was, as it often is, collections by independent designers who have been in their studios, often for months or even years, toiling to bring these products to market. These included Philippe Malouin’s filing-cabinet-chic bent-aluminum and cast-nylon furniture pieces for Salon 94, manufactured by Lehni, the Swiss fabricator behind Donald Judd’s furniture; Garance Vallée’s first-ever furniture collection, featuring a stepped wenge wood bed and a whimsical wrought iron candelabra; Bolzan’s collection of beds, curated by Zanellato/Bortotto and featuring pieces by Martino Gamper, India Mahdavi, Julie Richoz, and Sam Baron; Madrid-based Esto’s Disguise Series, featuring tubular steel forms dressed in spiky, hand-sewn textiles; Jonathan Muecke’s first furniture collection produced at scale for Knoll; gilded copper pieces by Theo Galliakis on view at Alcova; the first piece from Abject, Misha Kahn’s new line of more accessible designs; and a set of lamps by Rooms, which deploy silicone out of context in the best way possible. See all of our picks below, then come back tomorrow for a look at our favorite group exhibitions and installations!