This is what caught five Canadian designers’ eyes at the Milan furniture fair | Canada Voices

ALL IN THE DETAILS

Jamie Wolfond had a busy week in Milan, launching his first solo show in the city, Twenty Four Hours, an exhibit of 24 unique clocks, each designed by a different creative. Still, he made time to explore Milan and see what others were up to. “I saw a really nice prototype for a chair,” he says, referring to the PROFIL outdoor chair. “It was a collaboration between Hydro, an aluminum extrusion company that does a lot of manufacturing in the industry, and Keiji Takeuchi, a talented designer from Japan. It’s very elegant and made of aluminum, but it almost looks like the slats of a wood floor.”

Wolfond appreciated not only the design itself but the context in which it was presented. “It was displayed alongside the tooling used to make it,” he says. “It made me see the potential of the piece. It’s an economical design that only requires a few forms for the slats and legs. It’s still a prototype, but I’m hopeful people will see its potential for broader manufacturing.”

BANKABLE DESIGNS

To Carlo Colacci, owner of Toronto furniture dealer Bonne Choice, Vancouver-based lighting studio A-N-D chose the perfect venue to debut its new collections: Contour, Pace and Tier. “It was in an empty, dimly lit bank space, complete with a stainless-steel safe,” he says. “It was really fun navigating the tight corridors, basement vault and secret rooms to discover all the pieces.”

Because the bank lacked ambient light, A-N-D’s installations (particularly its Column floor lamp) added a rich, inviting glow. The Column, which resembles a tower of fluted, cylindrical glass bricks, was Colacci’s favourite piece. But he also admired the glass globes on a series of pendant, table and floor lamps. “The coolest part is that when the lights are off, the globes are tinted to match their stand or hardware,” he says. “That makes them feel more like sculptures.”

FIBREGLASS REIMAGINED

Fibreglass is an everyday, under-celebrated material. The stuff of boat hulls and sports equipment, it’s not often featured in designer housewares, which is one reason Ligia Deltrejo, a project designer at Toronto’s Mason Studio, was surprised to be so taken by a display of fibreglass furniture. The chairs, lights and benches shown by Italy’s Imperfetto Lab “were so sculptural, artistic, and stunning,” Deltrejo says. “Some of them had incredibly realistic textures, like stone and wood. I kept touching them in disbelief that it was fibreglass.” Deltrejo would love to use the Imperfetto pieces in a project, especially one of its comfortable chairs, such as the Phil or Berlin. She also notes that fibreglass has many practical benefits beyond its aesthetics. “It’s UV-resistant, weather-resistant and lightweight,” she says. “It’s also considered a sustainable material, since it’s composed of glass, which is primarily made from sand, and it has high longevity compared to other materials.”

LIBRARY OF LIGHT

While the Milan Furniture Fair is held annually, Euroluce, a show-within-the-show dedicated exclusively to lighting, only happens every other year. This was one of those editions, and the fair commissioned British artist and stage designer Es Devlin (whose past clients include Beyoncé and Adele) to create a standout installation: The Library of Light. “A huge circular library with over 3,000 books slowly rotated in the courtyard of the Pinacoteca di Brera, while audio recordings of readings by prominent authors played,” says Will Sorrell, national director of Canada’s Interior Design Show. “The Pinacoteca is an art gallery with a photo library and an active academy.” For Sorrell, the setting, which also includes a statue of Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker by Canova, was part of what made the light installation so impactful. “Milan is often used as a venue for brand installations with no context for the location,” he says. “This was a welcome change.”

SOFT POWER

Dyonne Fashina, principal designer at Toronto interiors studio Denizens of Design, was drawn to the Arche dining chair by Canadian Italian designer Paolo Ferrari, featured at Convey, a showcase for emerging brands. “The complex curvature of the arms and back makes it different,” she says. “But at the same time, I could imagine it fitting into just about anyone’s dining room.” Fashina also appreciated the chair’s materiality. “It’s wood,” she says. “But you almost wouldn’t know it, the way it’s finished in beautiful, high-polished lacquers or solid stains in different tones – like buttery yellow or persimmon red. There are also optional leather cushions. It’s quite incredible to take something hard like wood and make it appear so soft.”