Italian designers are taking over the 17th London Design Festival, with Italian companies presenting all the beauty they can create to the over 580 thousand visitors from all over the world that are populating the City during these 9 days dedicated to design and architecture. The event, which features four small trade fairs, is also a great platform for cultural initiatives, exhibitions, and debates, spread across 11 city districts.
It is in this context – in a city that hosts a thousand design studios among the most important in the world, which from their headquarters control and manage the largest international real estate developments on a global level – that Italian furniture and design companies seek to intercept and conquer the most prestigious and profitable contracts. Organized in showrooms with various initiatives, small and large brands are meeting the great design and architecture London community. As highlighted by Giorgio Gobbi, managing director of the Italian Design group Brands, designers use this platform to project ourselves on a global scale. He summarized the fundamental difference between the Salone del Mobile in Milan and the London Design Festival saying: “Milan and Italy are the places where design is produced, London is the one in which it is applied. We must be there because this is where we sell.”
Indeed, London is at the heart of the fourth international market for Italian furnishing and lighting companies. Exports from Italy to the UK in 2018 were worth more than 1.16 billion euros and a further growth of 1.5% was recorded in the first four months of 2019.