Every year the design world descends on Milan for the world’s biggest design week and furniture fair, Salone del Mobile. Across the city, showrooms and design brands open their doors to showcase the latest interior trends and new launches. It’s a smorgasbord of design. I had two days to take in as much as I could, which for Milan Design Week, is only really scratching the surface of what there is to offer. Today I’m sharing my highlights of Milan Design Week 2025 – my favourite new collections, furniture finds and brands you should have on your radar.
IKEA launches new STOCKHOLM collection
I was very lucky to be invited to Milan Design Week 2025 to get a first look at IKEA’s new, much-anticipated STOCKHOLM collection. First launched in 1985, the collection is now in its 8th edition, aiming to challenge the notion that high quality comes at a high price. With a focus on craftsmanship and functional Scandinavian design, the collection was described at the launch as the ‘collectables of tomorrow’. We all remember that IKEA rattan cabinet that was a sell-out, igniting the rattan trend, right?!
For 2025, there’s nearly 100 new objects, from minimalist sofas and solid oak cabinets to boucle armchairs and mouth-blown glass, all with a reasonable price tag. Half of the collection is made up of accessories, so there’s something for everyone, no matter your budget. The inspiration for the designers was rooted in nature, with colours referencing the changing seasons and a particular focus on natural materials, from handwoven 100% wool rugs to side tables made of the best Nordic pine. I’ve got my eye on the birch veneer easy chair (£279) and the Japanese-inspired plate (from £10).
Shop the collection on ikea.com today!
All images IKEA
The Muuto Milan Apartment in Brera
Danish brand Muuto transformed an apartment in the Brera district into a colourful oasis. Transitioning from heart-stopping red, to mellow blue, through acidic lime green to rich aubergine, each room was inspired by the changing seasons. While some of the space was a bit too bold for me, I could appreciate the tonal approach – washing one room in variations of the same hue.
Perhaps not surprisingly, I was most drawn to the greener end of the spectrum, in the more tranquil dining room and kitchen space. I particularly loved the combination of the new marble-topped Midst table with the wood veneer Cover armchair, the seat upholstered in what looked like a soft green Kvadrat fabric. The Midst table, designed by TAF Studio is new for 2025 and also comes as a coffee table. It has a high-gloss, spun-steel base which feels monolithic and substantial, contrasting with the more delicate veining of the honed marble top. Available September 2025.
All images Muuto
Tacchini opens its first showroom with new launches by Faye Toogood
Italian design brand Tacchini unveiled its first showroom, conceived as if it was a real, lived-in home, set in an elegant, early 20th-century Milanese apartment in the heart of Brera. Spread over two floors, the space felt intimate and elegant, with original parquet floors and preserved period details setting the scene for Tacchini’s tactile furniture collection.
The vibe was very Seventies, most evident in Faye Toogood’s indulgent Bread & Butter collection. The inspiration came from just that – a loaf of bread and a slab of butter, and the collection really does do what it says on the tin. An oversized, ridiculously squishy modular sofa, ‘as tactile as soft butter’, comes in creamy velvet, while a console table and side tables are carved from ash with a contrasting maple inlay, suggesting the appearance of buttered bread. Almost good enough to eat.
My favourite pieces, though, were two chairs designed by Tobia Scarpa – the Dialogo chair from the 1970s and the Pigreco chair, designed in 1959. Both now come in a glossy laquer finish, in white and dark green. I think you already know which I prefer…
Showroom image: Andrea Ferrari
New lighting by Michael Anastassiades
Designer Michael Anastassiades presented three new lights at the Jacqueline Vodoz and Bruno Danese Foundation in Milan. The star highlight of the trio is Cygnet, a sculptural light inspired by memories of building and flying kites as a child. Paper triangles are held together and connected by a simple frame – constructed from Alexander Graham Bell’s tetrahedron cell – illuminated by a hidden light source, giving the light a delicate appearance, like birds in flight.
‘As children we used to build kites using cane, paper and glue we would make out of flour and water,’ says Anastassiades, ‘We would fly the kite with a mission to let it go as high as the length of string we had. And there was a point we could no longer spot it in the sky as it had travelled so far. It was only during moments it would catch the sun and glow that we could tell it was still there.’
Cygnet comes in two sizes (60 and 90cm wide) and multiple compositions, for a variety of uses above dining tables and suspended in stairwells.
Images: Nicolò Panzera
Time & Style’s 2025 collection
Time & Style is a Japanese brand founded on the concept of evolving traditional Japanese techniques for modern, daily life. They have beautiful showrooms in Tokyo, Osaka, Amsterdam and Milan that are well worth a browse around if you happen to find yourself in any of those cities.
For 2025, Time & Style have introduced some stunning new designs created in collaboration with designers from Japan, Sweden and Denmark. With a focus on clean lines and refined details, the collection combines traditional Japanese craftsmanship and time-honoured techniques with innovative modern methods. I was particularly ‘wowed’ by the wooden cantilever chair, a curved Bauhaus-style chair made of thin pieces of moulded plywood. I mean, this is the kind of thing you create with plastic or metal, but they’ve managed to perfectly shape the plywood to give the chair strength and flexibility, so it can bend to support the body.
I also appreciated the tactility of the Nenrin stool, crafted from Yoshino cedar and shaped on a woodworking lathe. Yoshino wood, grown in a region renowned for its 500-year tradition of managed forestry, is celebrated in Japan for its fine growth rings that give the wood its special character and grain. Also worth noting are the Hozuki paper lamps on slender metal legs, the Arita lamp made of white porcelain by the skilled artisans of Arita, and the Kigumi stacking shelf, which can be layered up to four levels.
All images Time & Style
MUJI 5.5 House
For Milan Design Week 2025, Japanese brand MUJI collaborated with French designers Claire Renard and Jean-Sébastien Blanc, co-founders of Studio 5.5, to create the Manifesto House. The compact home, made of prefabricated modules that can be assembled in as little as a day, shows how you can live frugally and modestly in a small space.
The idea is that you can mix and match the six different modules to create a home that perfectly suits your needs, expanding on a design in the future if you needed to. Internally, it was really clever how the modules helped to zone and organise the tight space. The sleeping module for example features a raised tatami mat with lift-up storage that reveals compartments for storing clothes below. The dining module has benches that can slide across the full width of the house to create a dining table with seating, or alternatively a desk against the wall. The kitchen module has pantry-style shelves to store glass jars of food, while a reimagined Shoji sliding partition conceals a traditional Japanese bath known as an Ofuro. With large windows and sliding doors opening onto nature, it didn’t feel claustrophobic or restrictive at all.
The Manifesto House is really designed to be in harmony with nature, encouraging a more mindful, responsible way of living. The house is made from bio-sourced and repurposed materials, including recycled textile insulation. The white roof reduces heat gain and collects rainwater to irrigate plants, while an outdoor terrace features shelves to grow your own edible garden. The idea being that you could become self sufficient in a house that takes you back to basics.
Images: Cate St Hill
