The Young, Beautiful and Brave at Salone 2026 Explore Here
Design is everything, maybe not so much the thing you think about often, but every day it is part and parcel of your day. From the cup you drink from, to the bicycle you ride, the steps you walk on, the surfaces you touch and even the lights you turn on and off. Salone Del Mobile, in case you are not aware, is the biggest and most important design fair in the world. Even if you do know it, you may not be aware that since 1998, curator Marva Griffin Wilshire has held a section of the show called SaloneSatellite. A dedicated and pioneering event at the Salone that showcases young under-35 designers.
It launched to bridge the gap between emerging creative talents and industry manufacturers, hosting over 14,000 designers and evolving into a 25-year ‘universe’ of innovation. Not only is it a hug for young talent, but it is also often the most exciting part of the whole event. Here, new talent emerges, bringing visionary thinking and new design solutions alongside new textures, shapes and materials. Most of all, it is inventive, creative, thinking outside the box, free of the constructs of big industry. This year sees a spotlight back on craftsmanship as a driver of design: from manual gesture to innovation, spanning experimentation, new techniques and responsible design.
The Winners
The three winners of this prestigious award were Russo Betak from Denmark in first place, with The Nippon pendant lamp, part of the Ark collection, which is synonymous with bio-engineering and craftsmanship. A large-format 3D custom printer to turn waste shells discarded by restaurants into a rigid yet fluid material. Here, experimentation with materials is combined with a simple, elegant form, holding the promise of future developments.
Second Nature
Arc Collection, Ious Studio, were in second place with 3DP Ceramic Tiles; the Dutch studio redefined the concept of coverings. Here, clay is not modelled by hand, but extruded by means of computational control. Digital fabrication that becomes ‘new craftsmanship,’ in which the pinpoint precision of the machine is combined with the materiality of the clay.
Third Space
Jüngerkühn was in third place with Soft Touch. A German project exploring robotic tactility. The Soft Touch collection of porcelain vases features textures that look organic, almost human. Unique patterns that become clearer the closer they are seen, revealing a ‘mastery’ generated by algorithms.
Special Mentions
Beyond the main prizes, this year’s Special Mentions, in collaboration with Rong Design Library and the Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation, granted two designers, Aiko Design and Yixian Wang, a residency in Hangzhou to explore the intersection of modern design and traditional Chinese craftsmanship.
And then there were others whose shapes, textures and innovation stood out at the show.
Luvaton studio (Image on left)
Talia Luvaton unveiled her complete range of leather vessels at Salonesatellite 2026, featuring the world premiere of ‘Trace’. A handcrafted leather vessel that translates human movement into architectural rhythm. By using wet-forming techniques, the material is shaped by hand into three-dimensional vessels that balance strength and delicacy, revealing the organic behaviour and tension within the leather. Leather is explored as a material capable of holding form, volume,and presence.
Through sculptural form, the work highlights both the strength and the delicacy of the material, revealing leather as a medium that remains sensitive, organic, and alive while maintaining structural integrity.
Talia Luvaton,
Industrial Designer, Jeweller &Leather Craft Artist.
Left Healed Tattooed, Right Rebloom
Trace is the newest addition to her entire portfolio, where Luvaton positions leather as a powerful, expressive material within the global contemporary design landscape. Trace is one of the seven different shapes in her collection.
[Gann] unveiled the Gravity Collection at SaloneSatellite 2026: A tactile Art Piece Inspired by the Black Sea. The Gravity Collection, a three-piece set of collectable furniture exploring water expression through a solid object via ‘levitating’, sculptural forms.
Each piece is crafted from MDF and CNC-milled. It’s then hand-sanded, covered in seven layers and polished, taking approximately 40 hours of hand finishing. Тhe collection began with Kosta’s emotional connection to the sea: when he feels heavy, he goes to observe the water and imagines that his feelings have their own gravitational field, expressed through unnatural forms of water suspended above solid mass.
The project is also rooted in a deeply personal story. Kosta’s father was blind and could not experience artworks in galleries visually, but he experienced Kosta’s woodwork through touch at home, which led Kosta to create a tactile art piece that can be encountered beyond sight.
The Milan-based design and consultancy firm provides product, furniture, and spatial design, as well as brand identity and art direction services. Their holistic design approach, which the studio embraces, results in cohesive and refined brands. The designer’s unique style blends contemporary Italian influences, drawn from her professional experience, with minimalist Scandinavian aesthetics and a touch of warmth inspired by her Turkish heritage.
Kavcic, a Slovenian family-owned business, making solid wood furniture store passed down through three generations. Combining traditional craftsmanship with modern design to create beautiful, functional furniture pieces that are as stylish as they are durable.
Hangy is an indispensable piece of furniture for those who appreciate form and function and wish to maximise their living space.
Indonesian designer Cynthia Margareth, founder of Mergrath Design, presented Crafting Contours, a collection that explores subtle contours and evolving shapes found in nature, guiding the development of furniture, lighting, and objects. Each piece interprets these rhythms through material, proportion, and craftsmanship.
Rather than positioning the pieces as resolved outcomes, the collection reflects an evolving process. It is an attempt to introduce a different interpretation of sculptural form, one that remains open to refinement and dialogue. This iteration stems from an ongoing curiosity about how objects influence spatial experience, navigating a tension between expression and restraint. Objects are treated as
carriers of expression, yet guided by a sense of control, where form is refined through proportion and clarity.
The ÌSÉPÒ Series by Richard Adetokunbo Aina is a family of furniture defined by lightness, structural clarity, and cultural continuity. Drawing from the sculptural language of European and Hausan miinaret architectural vaults and the Makonde stool of Tanzania, traditionally imbued with symbolism and communal presence, the series reinterprets African heritage through modern minimalism.
Each piece is anchored by four inward-tapered legs that converge into a vaulted understructure, creating a stance that feels both grounded and uplifted. A manifested definition of the word ÌSÉPÒ from curves that come together and exist in relation to one another.
A furniture designer studying for a master’s in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was one of many students with work presentations. dal.interiors by Deema abdulaziz almosa presented a 3d printed chair. Developed as part of an experimental research study. The project investigates the structural performance of 3D-printed connectors in wooden chair construction, focusing on how different materials influence strength, stiffness, and overall load-bearing behaviour under controlled conditions.
The chair itself represents the practical application of this research, where wood is combined with 3D-printed connectors to explore how these joints can function as structural elements rather than purely aesthetic components. The design aims to demonstrate the potential of digital fabrication in furniture construction through material performance and structural logic.
Sara Jasim
Alongside other young talent from the same area is Sara Jasim, an interior designer. She presented Ruja, Refined Simplicity, in a chair that reflects a dialogue between heritage and contemporary design. Crafted from high-quality wood, it features intricate Najdi patterns delicately carved into its surface. The geometric triangular motifs are inspired by the essence of Najdi cultural heritage, translating tradition into a refined modern language.
Left dal.interior, right Sara Jasim,
Beyond its visual identity, it is designed with functionality at its core. The chair consists of two interlocking pieces that can be easily assembled and disassembled like a puzzle, offering flexibility, portability, and a dynamic user experience.
A furniture and product designer whose practice focuses on reimagining the everyday.
Her work explores the bridge between memory and innovation, taking familiar objects from the African community and reinterpreting them through a fresh, contemporary lens.
Uslu Design Studio was founded in 2025 by Istanbul-based interior architect and designer Alp Usluduran, as an extension of his architectural practice. After completing his studies in interior architecture at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and design at Accademia di Brera in Milan, he established Uslu Architects in 2015, where he developed a design-driven approach over more than a decade.
Disco House revisits the late 1970s’ high-gloss era through the hedonistic rhythm of music, architecture and material. The collection is structured around two core ideas. The first is the invisible relationship between music and architecture.
“Music moves through time, architecture moves through space,” says Usluduran. “Both are constructed to produce emotion. Rhythm creates a state of mind, that state becomes atmosphere, and that atmosphere forms a space in the mind.”
Over at the extremely exciting venue Superstudios, designers Alexandre Fontani and Edoardo Cassina unveiled a new collectable table. The project marked the meeting of two complementary approaches: a shared sensitivity for refined materials and form, combined with a strong focus on production, construction, and spatial presence.
The table’s top is developed as a patchwork of stone fragments, assembled and unified through deep resin joints layered on copper leaves inspired by the philosophy of kintsugi; not as repair, but as transformation. Rather than concealing interruption, the piece gives it value, turning contrast, fracture, and reintegration into a visual language.
The structure, veneered in oak and finished in a burgundy lacquer, is a precise and understated base that supports the expressive richness of the top. A stone set in resin produces a surface that feels both raw and sophisticated, where every junction becomes part of the narrative.
At the Superstudio location, Ayça Yılmaz presented ‘Companion’, a sculptural valet stand that transforms the act of placing personal items away into a daily ritual. Rather than functioning as a purely utilitarian element, it establishes an emotional dialogue with the user through its presence, balance and material expression. Designed as a silent partner in the domestic landscape, it welcomes clothes and accessories, embodying a sense of calm and continuity.
Its shape stems from the idea of a standing figure, stable, attentive and discreet, that transforms storage into a moment of encounter. Redefining function as experience, it explores how objects can support daily life not only physically but also psychologically, becoming a constant and intuitive presence in the space.
Rossana Rubino‘s practice explores the transformative potential of textile waste, bringing together artisanal processes and contemporary concerns around sustainability. The works emerge from an experimental technique that combines recycled paper pulp with textile fragments, creating hybrid surfaces that challenge traditional distinctions between support, image, and object.
Cellulose lies at the core of this process: a simple yet highly versatile material capable of evoking natural cycles of growth, dissolution, and regeneration. The use of natural binders preserves their integrity, maintaining ethical consistency with sustainable principles. Reclaimed textiles become active elements within the work, acting as carriers of memory and stratification and contributing to surfaces marked by tension and irregularity.
The creative process is slow and open-ended, treating matter as an active agent. Layers, sedimentation times, and environmental conditions leave visible traces, producing results suspended between control and chance. Within this framework, waste becomes a critical element, questioning dominant production models and consumption patterns.
The work exists as a space of balance between art and design, experimentation and responsibility, inviting viewers to consider materials not only for what they are, but for what they have the potential to become.
Move over, Baby Boomers, it’s now all about the new kids in town showing us where the world is going. The youthful, fresh thinking is always dynamic and is here to dive into new ways not just of thinking, but seeing and feeling, too.
If you enjoyed reading The Young, Beautiful and Brave at Salone 2026 Explore Here, then why not read Salone Del Mobile 2026 here
.Cent Magazine, London. Luxury Mindset
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