Salone del Mobile, Milan — A Debrief
What Milan Design Week signaled for residential drapery in the season ahead — and the quiet pivots happening at the edges of the fair.
Salone del Mobile is the louder, broader cousin of Maison & Objet — more furniture, more lighting, more architecture, less pure textile. But the drapery story is told there in the brand pavilions and the Brera and 5Vie installations, where the editors and the mills curate the rooms they want the trade to remember.
Two themes carried this year. First, weight returned. The lighter, almost transparent linens that defined the last cycle are giving way to denser hand-loomed wools, mohair blends, and double-faced cottons that fall with real architecture. Second, the colors quieted. Aubergine, olive, ochre, and bottle green replaced the bone-on-bone neutral palettes I expected.
The installation I will remember was a small Brera apartment dressed entirely in a single butter-yellow Italian wool — sheer for the front room, a heavier weave for the bedroom, both ceiling-mounted with a black iron rod. Quiet, confident, completely resolved. The kind of room a great Los Angeles project should aspire to.
Olga Rechdouni is the principal designer of House of Drapery and a consulting specialist on custom drapery for the residential interiors of Los Angeles. She is a member of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and works privately with homeowners, interior designers, and architects.