The world’s largest furniture and interior trade show, The Salone Internazionale del Mobile, a.k.a “Salone” or “Milano Salone,” is held every year around April in Milan, attracting well over 200,000 visitors. This year was the Salone’s 50th anniversary, and Maruni, a Japanese furniture brand frequently used by our cllients, was one of the participants at the show. This past Friday, our staffs had a chance to attend a seminar held by Maruni in Tokyo which reflected on the Salone and the latest trends in the global furniture industry.
Among the many exhibitors from around the world, Maruni enjoyed much success and attention at the Salone this year, having introduced a new line of furniture in collaboration with two world-class product designers, Naoto Fukazawa and Jasper Morrison.
Naoto Fukazawa is known domestically for designing au cell phones for KDDI, home appliances for the brand ±0 (plus minus zero), and wall-hanging CD players for MUJI, to name a few. Jasper Morrison is a designer of international influence whose products are characteristically simple yet highly refined in utility and artistic design. His works include lightings for FLOS and kitchen items for Alessi. For those of us in the furniture industry, it is of great interest to know the kind of furniture that comes into being when such talents combine.
We have so much to share about our findings from the Maruni seminar! So, over the next few blog entries, we will be covering this year’s interior color trend, the highlights from the Salone, and about the latest furniture from Maruni.
For today, we'll briefly touch upon the color trend seen at this year’s Salone. The speaker at the seminar showed us several photos from the show, and reported that earthy colors schemes were predominant throughout the venue. This seems to be an ongoing trend in the recent years which is likely to be influenced in part by green trends having taken root in the mainstream culture, and demands remaining high for natural product materials.
The Italian brand FLEXFORM captures this trend well with its total interior coordination based on white and beige color schemes, and its use of non-synthetic upholstery materials such as cotton and tanned leather. Many manufacturers appear to be aspiring more than ever to provide products that could create living spaces that are more comforting and reflective of the natural environment.
However, a new pattern found at Salone this year was the use of yellow as an accent color. Many brands had integrated yellow elements into their products in one way or another, for instance by placing yellow cushions on grey or beige sofas. This creates a stylish contrast against neutral base colors, and adds a new spark to the underlying rustic or vintage themes.
That’s it for today, but we will be posting some more reports from the seminar, so be sure to come back for updates!
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