SALONE INTERNAZIONALE DEL MOBILE

Worldwide most significant Furniture Fair

The Salone Internazionale del Mobile is the worldwide most significant Furniture Fair. Established in 1961, with its first international edition following soon thereafter in 1967, the Salone Internazionale del Mobile has since acquired a resonance, that relies on the smart combination of quantity and quality. At the venerable age of almost fifty, the Salone is not only the World's premier showcase for the crème de la crème of the international furniture industry, but an unparalleled opportunity for communication and exchange for all who work within it, from the products themselves to the installations that display them to the services provided to exhibitors and visitors alike.
As a result, the world has incorporated yet another Italian word into its languages, Salone which means: the cutting edge of design. In 2010, the Salone will take place from Wednesday, April 14th to Monday, 19th.

09 Salone Internazionale del Mobile©Alessandro Russotti

I Saloni
The Salone in Milan splits up in several Exhibitions:

•    Salone Internazionale del Mobile – The exhibiting Furniture Suppliers present their goods in different halls, according to the product groupings. The halls are conceived in Classic, Modern and Design style.
•    Salone del Complemento d’Arredo – The Interior decoration items as home textiles, mirrors, etc. are presented in the same halls as the furniture.
•    Salone Internazionale del Bagno – Entire two halls present the bathroom furnishings.
•    Eurocucina – The biannual Kitchen Furnishing Fair takes place every even years, the next in 2010.
•    Euroluce – The biannual lighting fair is part of the Salone every uneven years, the next one in 2011.
•    Salone Ufficio – The biannual Office Furniture Exhibition takes place every uneven years, the next one in 2011, too.
•    Salone Satellite – This exhibition offers a special area to young designers and talents.

Record Figures at the New Fairground in Rho
In 2008, the Salone has moved its trade-shows to the new fairground in Rho. This had no influence at all on the exhibitor or visitor figures, on the contrary. The total exhibitor number in 2009 reached the best mark of 1,370 and the best visitor number was 378,000 in 2008. In the year of the crisis, the visitor figures drowned a 27%, to 278,000 professional visitors. Therefore there were some relatively unsatisfied exhibitors and visitors. Yet, the charm of the fair remains as ever: despite the crisis at the furniture manufacturing sector, the Salone remains still the most visited trade-show, and the visitor quality increased. More than half of the visitors are International, in 2009, Russia and Germany being first.

The visitor target group of the Salone are retailers, wholesalers, upholstery manufacturers, interior architects, specifiers, architects and industry designers.

The Salone: A Fairground for Innovation
No other fair shows that much innovation as the Salone. Especially regarding the furniture, the trade-show in Milan is regarded as the fairground introducing first the most innovative collections, a real setback for other similar trade-shows.

In a direct way, the cross-over to other product groups is offered in a manner, rare to other trade-shows – exhibiting furnishing collections that present different product ranges in the same style. Most spectacular are, for instance, fashion brands, that work in living collections as Fendi Casa or Missoni. Another example states Diesel, having started with home textiles at first and now launching furniture and lighting. Well known licensees are the Italian Manufacturers Moroso and Foscarini.

In 2009, an outstanding element was the use of foto prints in furniture or cushion fabrics, as for instance, seen at Meritalia. Every new edition of the Salone offers an opulent choice in terms of ideas and inspirations to retailers, designers, specifiers and contractors.


09 SaloneSatellite©Sofa Montanara Giovani Pesce for Meritalia

Unforgettable events!
The special side events that accompany the Salone every year are of distinctive significance. One one hand, they are invariably signed by important international artists and designers, presented in down-town and widely ecoed. On the other hand, they reedit a face of the Italian tradition of maecenism, which is of historical highly valued meaning to the Italians.

In 2008, for instance, in the opulent hall of the Cariatides in the Palazzo Reale, Peter Greenaway redesigned for the Salone a spectacular reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, opening two and three-dimensional areas to the public to walk through: on the wall, there was displayed the transformed reproduction and in midst of the room, a table had been laid, conserving strict proportions in recognition to the famous Last Supper model. The whole project caused a major delay of the opening – lots of bureaucratic bits needed bypass – which took place finally on September, 6th with grand success. In five months, 54,000 people had come to see the installation. Rewarding facts: while in 2001 there had been just 245 press releases on the Salone, in 2008, in change, only the first five months there had been more than a thousand of which 150 on TV!

In 2009 – again within the Palazzo Reale – there was a huge presentation called Magnificense and Project, displaying more than 250 items of culturally historical value out of various centuries.
In 2010, alongside the trade fair, the collateral event that has long been the icing on the Saloni cake will be particularly important: a journey into the world of gathering round the table dismantled and celebrated in its various incarnations through its settings and its utensils.

Fuori Salone
While the halls show the more commercial and established exhibitors, outside the fairgrounds, a number of inspiring presentations are being exhibited with original and challenging outlooks. Important to mention is the Superstudio Più in the Via Tortoni, displaying the Temporary Design Museum in 2009, focusing on the pure design – a trend that appears to be more and more significant to the reception of the worlds of interior furnishings. Other showrooms worth a visit are, for instance, the Molteni or Matteo Thun.

The Saloni Worldwide: Trade-Shows in New York and Moscow
Responding to the request of a significant number of veteran Milanese exhibitors, Cosmit launched in 2005 i Saloni Worldwide – Furnishing Ideas Made in Italy – held annually in May in New York and in in October in Moscow. To the fourth edition in New York 2008, there had travelled fifty top Italian design companies facing 25,880 visitors from all over the world. At the fifth edition, there were 40 faithful exhibitors to the Saloni in NY, challenging the crisis. In Moscow, the trade-show exploded from first edition 180 exhibitors to fourth edition 499, facing around 28,750 visitors. In 2009, there had been 360 Italian companies at the Crocus Expo and almost 29,100 visitors coming from Russia and the former sovietic countries – Italian Furniture Fashion proving to be a status symbol for Russians.

CARLO GUGLIELMI - President Cosmit

Cosmit – The Organizer of the Saloni
Cosmit is the company that organizes the Salone Internazionale del Mobile di Milano. It was launched in 1961 by a small coalition of furniture manufacturers from within the Federlegno-Arredo trade association with the aim of promoting the export of Italian furniture, and which soon became the most prestigious international event in the world of furniture design and production. The Salone quickly proved itself to be an excellent marketing vehicle for a highly fragmented industry that would otherwise have lacked the means to express its overall potential: more than 13,000 companies employing 205,000 people.

Base: Living XL Special Edition 1/2010

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