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Up front

DESIGN

Forever
young

Fresh talent is front and
center of SaloneSatellite,
Milan’s annual showcase
of future design stars

In the vast, sometimes overwhelming
fairground of annual design that is Milan’s
Salone del Mobile (running April 16–21 this
year) nestles an enclave favored by those
in the know and hungry for experimental
ideas: SaloneSatellite. Removed from the
glitzier stands of the blue chip brands, this
low-key but cult event showcases products
dreamt up by younger designers from
across the globe—some still as prototypes,
others thrillingly functional.
The influential offshoot to the main
fair—founded in 1998 by Marva Griffin who
remains its curator today—has launched
many well-known names, including Britain’s
Sebastian Wrong, Italy’s Cristina Celestino,
and Japan’s Oki Sato, the founder of Felicia Arvid’s 2022
acclaimed minimalist design studio Nendo. SaloneSatellite entry,
the Infinity chair, made
Ostensibly a platform for emerging from pleated recylced fabric
talent, almost a third of the 500–600 secured to a steel frame
exhibitors this year have participated before.
Designers can exhibit up to three times until
they are 35, shoring up SaloneSatellite’s Sustainable style
reputation as an incubator over time. “Every
year, 10–12 personalities from the design Danish designer Felicia Arvid first Arvid is launching a chair with metal
world evaluate prototypes,” Griffin explains. showed her modular Addéra sofa components, both essential to
“They include top architects and designers, and wall-mounted Klipper acoustic assembling the piece and designed
journalists, a retailer who can appreciate if panels at Satellite in 2018. By 2019, as decorative in their own right.
the piece can be marketed, and a designer Italian company Caimi had put “I wanted to make the metal
who has taken part before. The sum of these Klipper into full production and in elements stand out, rather like
votes determines who takes part.” 2022, it won the prestigious design accessories in a fashion context,”
Griffin also involves universities, from award, Compasso d’Oro. says Arvid, who studied fashion
the Parsons School of Design in New York Last year’s display of Infinity in Copenhagen before a BA in Photos: Kasper Bottern; Courtesy of Tongqi Lu; Courtesy of Design VA.
to London’s Royal College of Art. Benefits for chairs offered a sustainable architecture at Glasgow School of
exhibitors include profile-raising exposure alternative to traditional upholstery. Art. The chair’s individual pieces
to companies who may want to manufacture Attached to steel frames was a can be removed and replaced if
their pieces. Here, Griffin picks three recycled fabric with concertina-like damaged—a repair-don’t-replace
designers returning to this year’s showcase, folds to bulk up the seat, obviating approach increasingly endorsed
whose work continues to get more exciting. any need to use foam. This year, by the design world.

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