The Best of the 2017 Milan Furniture Fair, Part I

When you're on the ground at the Milan Furniture Fair, things can seem like a total blur — you're walking miles a day, eating on the go, drinking too much wine, and seeing more new things than your brain can actually process at once. Which is why we love doing round-ups like these — organizing all of our favorite things into one (or two or three) places makes us realize just how great last week was, what trends are emerging (we're looking at you fringe, rust, lilac, and fiberglass) and what an interesting place design is at right now.
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Week of April 3, 2017

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: the fat-legged table trend continues, a design restaurant grows in Nashville, and imaginary modernist villas take shape in Vienna.
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The Best Thing We Saw in Milan Today, Day 4

On the Salone fairgrounds, we found a sleeper hit in the Italian metal processing company De Castelli, who began collaborating with designers back in 2010. We especially love the snaking, patinated Scribble tables by Francesca Lanzavecchia above, as well as the painterly folding screens by Alessandra Baldereschi.
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New Apparatus collection

The Best Thing We Saw in Milan Today, Day 3

We don't mean to be biased towards our American compatriots for the third day in a row, but the new Apparatus collection is, in a word, stunning — translucent, cast-resin tables topped by ash slabs lacquered in a high-gloss, rust-colored hue; patinated brass lamps with bases sheathed in a buttery calf suede; and slip-cast porcelain pendants punctuated by dangling brass spheres.
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The Best Thing We Saw in Milan Today, Day 2

At Rossana Orlandi, we spied this collection of items by students in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects program. The school partnered with West Supply, a Chicago-based foundry and fabricator to develop a selection of objects in glass and bronze.
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The Best Thing We Saw in Milan Today, Day 1

Sight Unseen is on the ground at the Milan Furniture Fair this week and we’ll be bringing you loads and loads of coverage next week! But until our rounds here are done, we’ll be featuring quick hits from some of our favorite things that caught our eye. First up: We had to cross an ocean to find a collection designed in our own backyard, Matter-Made's gorgeous new line.
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A Collection of Mirrors and Vases Inspired by Tribal Shapes and Colors

You heard it here first: Fringe is getting mainstreamed in Milan. When we came across VI+M Studio's divisive Cousin Itt-esque lamps last week, we didn't think to much of it, but this week, there's already been Cristina Celestino's new tables for Editions at Spazio Pontaccio and, around the corner from our Airbnb, these sweet collections of vessels and mirrors at the fashion boutique Malìparmi, designed by Serena Confalonieri,
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In Milan, Luxury Objects Inspired by Industrial Parts

To kick off the Milan Furniture Fair — where we'll be reporting from week — we have to talk about a favorite exhibition organized by NOV Gallery, the Swiss-based gallery who last year produced one of our favorite things in Milan. This year, rather than luxury, designers are exploring the theme of The New Readymade, so-named for the Duchamp term that's become widely adopted by artists to describe work derived from existing industrial parts.
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Week of March 27, 2017

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week was all about things we couldn't resist posting: a teeny tiny Milan fair sneak peek, lamps that are so bad they're good, an iridescent yoga studio, and an admittedly cliche interior full of zigzags and pink (above). Hey, we're only human.
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Soft Baroque furniture inspired by Photoshop

Soft Baroque’s New Furniture Collection is Inspired by Photoshop

Called Hard Round, Soft Baroque's new series is about manifesting something physical from a purely digital realm — in this case, a series of sculptural furniture pieces constructed from lines derived from the Photoshop "hard round" brush tool. The "worms," as they're called, have been transformed from digital sketches into a series of charmingly lumpy wood, marble, or aluminum pieces that range from vases to shelving.
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Estudio Persona

These Uruguay-Born, Los Angeles–Based Women are Poised for Furniture Stardom

Four years ago, Emiliana Gonzalez and Jessie Young moved to Los Angeles from their hometown of Montevideo. Back in Uruguay, they'd known each other only peripherally, but as creatives in a new city, they were drawn to one another. Gonzalez had trained as an industrial designer, while Young was a conceptual artist and a new mother who didn't have the energy to navigate a new art scene. After designing a few houses together, they moved on to products — first geometric walnut planters, then furniture — and founded Estudio Persona.
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