i-D’s deputy editor Alex Kessler and entertainment editor Douglas Greenwood attended Milan’s famed Salone del Mobile this April. They came for the vibes, left with a new passion for craft—and teapots. “I’ve been to all kinds of fashion weeks. I thought I’d seen peak chaos,” Kessler says. “And then I saw people queuing around the block… for a chair.”
Here the pair discuss the future of furniture, fashion, and design that blurs the line between essential and enigmatic.
Douglas Greenwood: One of the first things I saw was the Willo Perron X Vans installation. I walked in expecting trainers and got enveloped by what I can only describe as a Space Age Toblerone that felt like sound. Lights pulsing, smoke billowing—it was giving Rihanna halftime show but conceptual.
Alex Kessler: I love that. I experienced an unhinged fever dream at the Gucci presentation. It was in a cloister with men in tuxedos ushering people in like it was an opera gala. Inside there were bamboo-adjacent objects everywhere. But tasteful. Ethereal. Like design from the lost city of Atlantis itself.
Douglas: And the Saint Laurent exhibition! Four pieces in an enormous industrial space—designed decades ago, never produced until now. It felt serious. Like archival chic. The idea that design can just… lie dormant for 60 years and still hit? Love.
Alex: That’s how I feel about myself. It was fab. Let’s talk about the Loewe teapots. You walk down into this moody palazzo basement, and there they are: 25 teapots, all made by different artists. It was the first moment I felt like I understood anything.
Douglas: Same. They were so tactile, so distinct. Some looked like ancient relics, others like abstract blobs. One was the size of a toddler and apparently non-functional, which honestly made me like it more.
Alex: It was refreshing to see something that didn’t scream “luxury” but felt really… intentional? Compared to, say, a certain other brand whose installation was basically, “What if a logo was furniture.”
Douglas: The Hermès exhibition was also a standout. They turned an old swimming pool into this gallery space: clean, serene, vaguely monastic. The striped cashmere blankets nearly made me weep.
Alex: I know the ones. And the Loro Piana setup! You walk in, it’s pitch black, then flashes of light, things shaking, plates crashing—and suddenly, conversation pits in cashmere emerge like an expensive hallucination.
Douglas: People immediately sat down, even though they weren’t supposed to. But who can resist a sunken sofa?
Alex: Also—speaking of soft things I’ll never afford—I heard The Row’s cashmere bed sheets are made from fibres hand-brushed off the underbellies of baby goats in the Kashmir Valley. Like… baby goat underfur.
Douglas: Honestly? If I had one, I’d just lie under it and let it ruin me.
Alex: One of the more unexpected moments for me was the Miu Miu Literary Club. Not furniture, but such a clever way of bringing their people together. The conversations were all centered around girlhood and female authors. Very chic, very brainy, slightly intimidating.
Even though it’s a prime example of a fashion brand interloping in the design world, Miu Miu did it smartly—by building a stage and letting their cool, clever girls fill it.
Douglas: So basically your sweet spot.
Alex: Yes. But also: Trying to seem smart while discussing Simone de Beauvoir after waking up at 4 a.m. is no small task.
Douglas: Important topic—what did you eat?
Alex: Fresh prawn tartare spaghetti at Bice that nearly knocked me out with garlic. The most luscious veal steak at a friend’s dinner at Osteria Grand Hotel—something I’ll be thinking about for the rest of my life. And a pistachio sfogliatella from Princi that briefly aligned all my chakras.
Douglas: Love that for you. I had an asparagus flan that was weirdly delicious and a radicchio risotto with balsamic and strawberries that looked cursed but tasted incredible. And then… there was the tiramisu. I ordered it from room service and it came inside a giant fake coffee bean. Just cream inside. No sponge. No joy. 65 euros. Crimes were committed.
Alex: So, would you go back?
Douglas: I mean, yeah. I’d go back tomorrow.
Alex: Same. Even though I still don’t know what a credenza is.
Douglas: Doesn’t matter. We don’t need to know the technicalities. We just need to have opinions. One of the best things an editor ever told me: “You don’t need to know everything—just tell me how it made you feel.”
Alex: Which, in most cases, was: confused, overstimulated, hungry, and extremely into it. Okay, last question. What were you listening to during Salone?
Douglas: Björk’s DJ set at the Vans party changed my brain chemistry. It was happy hardcore, Bhangra, drum & bass, R&B. And then randomly, in the middle of the night, I remembered “Cold Water” by Major Lazer and suddenly it was the greatest song in the world again.
Alex: Stop. I was in full pop princess mode. Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine Deluxe: Brighter Days Ahead on loop. “Dandelion” is the sleeper banger. Made me feel like I was walking through Milan in slow motion with glowing skin and main character energy.
Douglas: So we were both delusional in our own special ways.
Alex: As it should be.