Salone del Mobile | Milan 2010.

Top image – Entry to the fairground and registration area. One word of advice – make sure to prepay your ticket to avoid crazy queues. I somehow managed to make this area look quite empty in my photos, but believe me that ain’t the case!

This might might give you a better sense of scale – birds eye view of one of the halls, which really only shows a fraction of it. I wish I had a wide angle lens to capture the view a bit better. Yeah, so you see what I mean now – friggin’ massive!!

Vitra stand was one if my absolute favourites – it was more like a mini design museum then a furniture stand. Just look at that superb styling, the product, the colour… I ache for that shit! Speaking of colour, did you know that Hella Jongerius has been developing a new range of colors for Vitra for the past two years? She has done an incredible job, as the new palette is simply exquisite (and so much better in real life then in my photos – trust me on that one).

There’s only one words that sums up the Edra stand… Porn. I loved it – it was quite dramatic, theatrical and fun (and very difficult to photograph due to low level lighting).

I decided to attended the the Salone del Mobile at Rho during my first day in Milan. I wanted to get it out of the way and cross it off the list of things to do.

Having been there once before, I knew what I was dealing with – it can be quite difficult to imagine the size of the fair until you’ve experienced it for yourself. The sheer volume of people and “stuff” on show is beyond comprehension. It is enormous. Epic. Overwhelming.

The fair consists of 24 large halls and each one could easily take up half a day if you visited every stand and looked at every product on display, stopped to chat to suppliers, enjoyed the food and drink on offer etc. I knew that I had a very limited amount of time {not realising that the volcano was going to bless me with 3 extra days in Milan}, so I set out to cover 5 carefully chosen halls by 6pm. Madness. The photos I’m showing you were taken across 4 different halls, all of which housed major {mostly} Italian and other international brands. The fifth stand I visited on the day warrants a separate post, as it is dedicated to young up and coming designers. My favourite part.

Enjoy.

I also really loved the Poliform stand. It was super lux, plush, comfortable and beautifully styled. I loved all the rugs and super tall bookshelves. And those lights over the dining table… Sigh.

Lema stand was one of those that lured me in, even though it wasn’t really on my list. I just really, really, really loved the styling. So delicious! (Notice that I didn’t really take any photos of the product.)

Flexform was absolutely glorious with generously proportioned rooms and an elegant palette of white, cream, caramel, and black highlights. Stunning.

Moroso stand was packed full of people {yeah, like others were really empty}, but for some reason I found it really hard to take photos here. I didn’t really love their stand that much this year, but some of the new product they released is outstanding. I think I can feel a separate post coming on…

Gervasoni stand. Don’t really have that much to say about it… {I think it’s getting late and I need to go to bed!}

Casamilano with a new collection designed by Paola Navone. Still not that much to say. Must sleep.

Casamania stand was a bit trippy with the matching floor and walls {or maybe that was just me and my jet-lag}.