The Best of the 2022 Salone Del Mobile — Part IV

After a rocky two years, life is inching closer to normal these days, and one could use the design-world fair schedule as a barometer: After outright cancellation in April of 2020, the annual Salone del Mobile in Milan managed to squeak through a mini-show in September, only to come back with full force last week just in time for its 60th anniversary. It certainly was no April — our fair experience this year included tromping around sweatily in 87-degree heat and getting drenched by an intense summer rain storm — but with the global supply chain still delaying production schedules and spring COVID surges so uncertain, it was the best case scenario, and a success by any measure. More than 2,000 exhibitors showed at the Rho Fiera this year, more than 260,000 visitors attended, and we walked away from all the huge Italian dinners, garden parties, and launch presentations feeling like our sanity had finally been restored.

A return to the first full-scale Milan fair in three years, though, meant a return to the gargantuan task of trying to see everything — well, definitely not everything, but enough — in five days, clocking 20,000 steps a day traveling from the nether reaches of the abandoned military hospital that housed Alcova, to the maze of pop-up shows dotted around the center of town, to the trek up north to the fair proper itself, where brands like e15, Glas Italia, and Arflex launch their new collections each year.

Our fourth Salone del Mobile round-up of 2022 finishes up our overview of in-town presentations, with a few Rho Fiera stragglers and a whole lot of the neighborhood-based fair 5Vie, which launched in 2013 and is still going strong. This year’s roundup includes a first — a restaurant interior, by the Georgian firm Rooms Studio — plus a conceptual bar that the marble company Marimar erected to pay homage to Adolf Loos’s 1907 American Bar in Austria. We’ve got our favorite presentation from Rossana Orlandi this year, a suite of fabric columns and capitals by the Spanish designer Sergio Roger, and our picks from the latest edition of Doppia Firma, which pairs designers with heritage craft manufacturers. Plus a new set of lights by Formafanstasma inspired by Matisse’s paper cut-outs, and the latest releases from Moroso, Vaarnii, SCP, and Resident. There’s a lot more to see in today’s post, we hope it inspires you!