Sci-fi lamps and inflatable furniture among six trends to know from Milan design week

That's a wrap on Milan design week 2026. Here are six trends to know from the industry’s biggest event of the year, starring a blow-up IKEA chair and a creepy AI-powered chandelier.

The festival surrounding furniture fair Salone del Mobile concluded yesterday following a frenzied week of exhibitions, installations and events across the city.

On the ground, there was little explicit acknowledgement of the geopolitical turmoil that has been dominating headlines, or the interlocking fuel, food and financial crises that are likely to follow — although one brand told Dezeen that 2026 had been nicknamed the year of cancellations, as exhibitors are grappling with the wide-reaching impacts of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Combined with budget cuts, this seemed to yield somewhat fewer bombastic installations than in previous years.

Instead, designers grappled with the rise of space travel and AI, explored food as a luxury item, provided means of escapism and bemoaned the brandification of Milan.

Sci-fi luminaires

In the wake of the moon landing, 1970s space age design painted a utopian vision of the future. Nearly 60 years on, NASA is celebrating the success of another lunar mission, but designers are offering a distinctly more unsettling take on the sci-fi theme – mainly in the form of lights.

While shiny chrome remains the dominant material, their shapes now suggest metal-boned aliens or uncanny androids, as seen in Bethan Laura Wood's Mille Fleurs chandelier for Baccarat, which combines hovering steel wires with stacked glass elements that resemble robotic eyes.

At Nilufar Gallery, several lamps by Italian designer Anita Morvillo resembled amorphous creatures with wire exoskeletons pierced by blown-glass stingers and antennas. Another room was dedicated to Andrea Mancuso's uncanny Lumic chandelier (above), with insect-like arms that move of their own volition thanks to an integrated AI brain.

Meanwhile, London's Tino Seubert is exhibited his Ferric Glass lights at design gallery Delvis Unlimited, decorated with stainless steel spider hinges that resemble webbed feet and retro coiled wires that dangle like long tails.

Good enough to eat

In what could easily be interpreted as a recession indicator, food turned out to be the ultimate luxury product this year, with designers delivering a veritable grocery store worth of products shaped like different produce.

New York designer Eny Lee Parker unveiled giant egg-shaped lights (top image), each presented in their own cup, while fashion brand Chloé made its first foray into furniture with the reissue of Christian Adam's scumptious 1970s Tomato chair (above).

Over at the Convey exhibition, Sudden Object used colourful glass fruit to replace the base of broken drinking glasses, demonstrating the collective's approach of "repair-by-collage".

The food frenzy wasn't just limited to objects, either. One of the most Instagrammed installations of the year saw food artist Laila Gohar create a merry-go-round with seats that resemble assorted fruit and veg, including a radish, cabbage and fig.

Inflatables are blowing up

Examples of blow-up furniture have truly ballooned this year, spotted everywhere from emerging designer shows to launches from big hitters like IKEA.

Spanish studio Vasto Gallery created a special edition of its inflatable sofa – first presented at design fair Collectible earlier this year – for Nike's Air Lab exhibition at Dropcity, replicating the shape of the sportswear brand's Liquid Max soles.

Jabez Bartlett, who got his start in set design, took to Alcova to present a low coffee table that resembles a giant PVC pillow with a milky resin surface set satifsyingly on top.

And IKEA debuted an inflatable seat wedged inside a Marcel Breuer-style metal frame (above), following on from the air-filled gaming chair it launched at Milan design week two years ago.

Inflatables proved equally popular when it came to installation design, as seen in pavilions from Škoda and USM, and the blow-up Moncler octopus looming over concept store 10 Corso Como.

The return of the cigarette

Whoever said smoking was dead? Young designers all over town showed implements for storing and smoking cigarettes, ranging from classic takes like Sophie Lou Jacobsen's pop-up dispenser to more experimental products that reimagine the act of smoking.

At the Deoron exhibition in Porta Venezia, there was a ring with an integrated cigarette holder and a tiny metal umbrella to shield it from the rain, courtesy of South Korean designer Yeonsu Na and eight different smoking devices by Armenian firm Electric Architects that "force the user to witness their own physical erosion at the moment of indulgence".

Meanwhile, in the Comune show at Spazio Ivy, German designer Caspar Fischer presented a desk lamp with a built-in ashtray for stress-smoking at work (above).

Good vibrations

Designers are turning up the volume when it comes to sound systems and envisioning new ways for audio equipement to be a design object in its own right.

In Tortona, design venue Base put on a whole five-day music festival in collaboration with Milan club Le Cannibale, hosting free open-air parties and late-night sessions organised around a towering multi-level speaker stack by Naoto Soundsystem.

Silvery doughnut-shaped speakers by Western Acoustics helped to round out an all-blue listening lounge by textile company Fidivi in the Convey Building.

And at Deoron, there was the triple threat of a Brutalist DJ booth from Berlin's Yont Studio (above), paired with butterfly-shaped New Fidelity speakers, plus a charred-wood Hi-Fi system by Studio Ambre and sculptural steel-and-brass decks with integrated vinyl storage from Slash Objects.

Peak brandification

"Unfortunately, Milan has been infiltrated by marketing opportunists, becoming a giant theatre for marketing all manner of worldly goods," designer Jasper Morrison told Dezeen's Max Fraser in the lead-up to this year's event. And that was before we knew that fast-food giant McDonald's would be making its Milan debut.

By the time the week drew to a close, a slew of industry figures, including design journalist Jasmin Jouhar, internet critic Beka Gvishiani and Say Hi To's Kristen de La Vallière took to social media to share their frustration about the event's brandification.

Luxury fashion houses, in particular, were accused of spending vast sums of money on their presentations without meaningfully contributing to the industry or the community the event is meant to serve – a sentiment echoed by commenters including Sabine Marcelis and gallerists Max Radford and Alex Tieghie-Walker.

But other companies were proving that not all brand involvement is bad. Nike, for example, is creating a permanent new Air Lab as part of its presentation at Dropcity. This will give local designers access to industry-grade tools for shaping products using air, including thermoforming machines and pneumatic cylinder kits, plus workshops on how to use them, completely free of charge.

Collaborating with a big brand like this also allowed Dropcity to provide free exhibition spaces for more emerging designers during design week, including students from Central Saint Martins and Politecnico di Milano, which at this point is virtually unheard of.

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