The world’s most discriminating interior-design eyes are all on Milan this week, where more than 2,300 exhibitors are displaying their decadent wares during the city’s 58th-annual furniture fair, the Salone Internazionale del Mobile. This year sees a fresh crop of chic furnishings, designed not just by home brands, but also by venerable couture labels — from Armani to Versace. Here’s an inside look at what’s best in show:
Roberto Cavalli
This pink, nubuck-upholstered “Malawi” sofa from Roberto Cavalli Home Interiors impresses with its feminine, seductive quality and attention to sartorial detail, for which the Italian fashion house has long been known. The armrests’ metal studs and fringe details lend an unexpected, slightly punk, rocker-chick edge.
Marni
For its Salone offerings, Marni enlisted help from a group of Colombian artisans with whom the brand has worked for years. The fashion house took the idea of a walk on the moon as inspiration for the out-of-this-world collection, which features a series of woven-PVC pieces, this armchair among them.
Paul Smith
British fashion’s Paul Smith partnered with fifth-generation English ceramics company 1882 Ltd. for his new Stack series of tabletop vessels. The glazed edges of the pieces — each of which looks like a neat pile of bone-china bowls or plates with their centers cut out (which is exactly what they are) — reinvent Smith’s signature 40-color microstripe.
Raf Simons
For the sixth in his series of Kvadrat collections, fashion designer Raf Simons has created four new fabrics for the Danish textile company, including the cotton “Phlox” (top) and wool bouclé “Atom.” With each, Simons explores the microarchitecture of the textiles and yarns, working with heavier structures and natural fibers.
Armani
An air of lightness defines the new Armani Casa collection at Salone. This sleek “Onda” chaise loungue — whose name and look recall the ocean (onda means “wave” in Italian) — combines a curved frame covered in woven leather and solid wood with a mattress and armrests upholstered in fabric and leather.
Missoni
Pastel, candy-colored hues and Missoni’s zigzag pattern make for a sweet combination in the label’s Paper Flowers collection, which is one of nine lines to recently debut and includes the design covering this posh pouf. The three-dimensional qualities of the weaves add a tactile element to each textile.
Etro
Italian brand Etro found inspiration in Greek mythology for much of its new home-interiors offerings, not least this smoked-eucalyptus frisè wood and polished brass “Ziggy” console, whose lightning-bolt legs look like they could have been forged by the Cyclopes and thrown down to earth by Zeus himself.
Hermès
French luxury-goods maison Hermès teamed up with frequent collaborator Jan Bajtlik, a Warsaw-based artist and designer who works in a variety of media, on its Animaux Camouflés (“Camouflaged Animals”) series of wall coverings, which includes the zebra-adorned version shown here, known as “Tropical.”
Louis Vuitton
The latest collection of Objets Nomades from Louis Vuitton features the cosseting curves of the “Bulbo” chair, designed by Brazilian brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana. Each of the petals of the seat — which is meant to look like an exotic flower — is lined with wool on the inside and exquisite Vuitton leather on the outside.
Fendi
The new polychrome-marble-topped “Effe” coffee tables from Fendi Casa take as their inspiration a graphic floral logo designed for the fashion house in 1983 by none other than Karl Lagerfeld. Italian architect Cristina Celestino plucked it from Fendi’s archive as a motif for her Back Home collection with the brand.
Versace
The indoor-outdoor Pop Medusa collection combines the face of the Greek mythological Gorgon — a signature Versace motif — with Pop Art colors. These plastic chairs (accompanied by laminate glass cubes) are displayed in an installation by artist Andy Dixon and decorator Sasha Bikoff.
Swarovski
Conceived in partnership with the design and innovation consultancy IDEO — creators of Apple’s first mouse — Swarovski’s Infinite Aura series reimagines the chandelier as a metal disc whose polished interior, lined with precision-cut crystals, creates an illusion of endless internal reflections when illuminated by its LEDs.