Launched in Milan in 1961 as a vehicle for promoting Italian exports of furnishing and accessories, the Salone Internazionale del Mobile is the global benchmark event for the furnishing and design sector.
The Salone is held in Milan in April every year, along with the biennial Euroluce exhibition in odd years and EuroCucina and the International Bathroom Exhibition in even years, and in tandem with the annual International Furnishing Accessories Exhibition and Workplace3.0. These events are flanked by FTK (Technology For the Kitchen), EuroCucina’s collateral event and S.Project, the exhibition devoted to design products and decorative and technical furnishing solutions. Since 1998, the trade fair has been rounded off by SaloneSatellite, the launchpad for young designers and a point of reference for companies on the look out for new talent.
Under the umbrella of the Salone del Mobile.Milano, these events cover a net area of almost 210,000 square metres overall at the Rho Fiera Milano fairgrounds, showcasing more than 2,300 of the most dynamic and creative companies on the global market each year.
Over 370,000 professional visitors attend the fair each year, just under 70% of them from 188 other countries, along with more than 5,000 national and international journalists and around 27,500 members of the public at the weekend, making the Salone del Mobile.Milano the unmissable sectorwide appointment. Not to mention the collateral events that take place alongside it, invariably curated by leading international artists and designers, because the Salone is not just synonymous with business but also with culture. This is the Salone, now in its 58th edition: an international platform with the “privilege of actuality” that shines a light on the state of the art of design. Every year, for years.
The Saloni WorldWide Moscow trade fair, held in October each year in the pavilions of the Crocus Expo exhibition centre and featuring some 300 Italian and foreign companies, was launched in 2005. The event underwent a change of name in 2018, becoming the Salone del Mobile.Milano Moscow, underscoring its strong links with Milan and Italy’s deep-rooted commitment to internationalisation. The Salone del Mobile.Milano Shanghai was launched in 2016, and takes place in November each year at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre, where more than 120 Italian brands showcase stand-out cutting edge creative furnishing solutions of the very best manufacturing quality.
2018 was a year of change for the Salone del Mobile.Milano with the launch of the Manifesto, a declaration of intent geared to channelling the forces that work together in Milan into preserving the leadership role of both the trade fair and the city, putting up a common front within the global market to attract ideas, projects and resources. The document rests on nine keywords: emotion, business, quality, design, system, young people, communication, culture and Milan, underscoring the fact that the success of the Salone del Mobile.Milano resides in the tireless industrial network that underpins it, in the quality of designs that entail sustainability, excellence of form and content, the ability to work as a system and to train young people and, especially, to capitalise on the extraordinary integrated communication and cultural mechanism that has always characterised the city and its region.