Milan Design Week 2026: How Luxury Has Transformed Design into a Cultural Experience

As always over the past 63 years, Design Week remains a prime occasion for orchestrating international launches—such as B&B Italia’s presentation this year of new pieces by Jasper Morrison, Ronan Bouroullec, Michel Anastasiades, and Vincent Van Duysen. But it has increasingly become a platform for brand expression. Tod’s, for instance, celebrated the 20th anniversary of its iconic loafer with a grand gala dinner hosted by Diego Della Valle, alongside an exhibition dedicated to the famous Gommino, reinterpreted by great masters of 20th-century Italian design such as Gaetano Pesce, Michele De Lucchi, and Achille & Pier Giacomo Castiglioni.

At Baccarat, currently undergoing a revival, this year’s focus was on lighting collections. Its return to Milan took on the form of a visual and almost mystical manifesto, occupying the Brera district with Crystal Crypt, an installation conceived by Emmanuelle Luciani. Designed as a futuristic cathedral where light, sound, and image merge, it drew inspiration equally from sacred architecture and Philip K. Dick. At its center, Bethan Laura Wood reinterpreted the iconic Zénith chandelier as a suspended, modular, almost cosmic structure combining colored crystal, metal, and vortex-like visual effects—pushing Baccarat’s heritage into a speculative aesthetic.

Hermès, one of the first brands to invest in the high-end design furniture sector—particularly through reissues of Jean-Michel Frank pieces in straw marquetry, originally presented at the opening of its Rue de Sèvres store in Paris—also strengthened its presence in Milan during Design Week. The house invited guests into one of its signature poetic and artistic wanderings: in reality, a silent manifesto around the theme of “weightless matter.” The scenography by Charlotte Macaux Perelman and Alexis Fabry literally suspended objects in space, as if freed from all constraints, revealing their pure form. Among the highlights were the “H Partition” throws with subtle geometries, coffee tables in layered colored glass playing with transparency, and hand-blown tinted glass vases where color seemed to float within the material. Each piece balanced artisanal precision with an illusion of lightness.

More than a collection, Hermès orchestrated a near-metaphysical experience: erasing technique to leave only a sensation—that of a form of luxury that quite literally elevates.

At Dior, nothing is left to chance. The house revived its dialogue with Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance, transforming a simple lamp into an aesthetic manifesto. The “Corolle” models echo the legacy of 1947, invoking the memory of the New Look within a domestic object. Behind the blown glass and artisanal details lies a clear strategy: making design a natural extension of fashion—and of the Dior myth.