There are looters that sell amuchina and masks at exorbitant prices and there are design looters who take advantage of the difficult moment that Italy is experiencing “to snatch” Milano Design Week.
The British magazine maybe has not understood that the unique the Milano Design Week cannot be virtual, indeed.

I hope design companies, especially Italian ones, will not fall into this outrageous trap which appropriates the identity and value of Milanese design.
And I also hope that the Municipality of Milan will make its – our own- voice heard.

While we Italians have been segregated for a week, singing from the balconies to stay stronger;
while companies jump through hoops not to close;
while the Italian design community is cheering for the Salone del Mobile to take place in June and is creating synergies to give Fuorisalone greater value,

in an unfair move, the British online magazine launches a sort of virtual exhibition that should be held in the Salone del Mobile April days planned before the corona virus, called – guess what – Virtual Milan.

Someone called Dezeen’s initiative “provocative” and “opportunistic”, someone believes that it is a missed opportunity for the Milanese design community.

I believe that this snatch is a shameful initiative and above all I believe that the vibrant vitality, energy and strength of UNIQUE Milan Design Week is inimitable (all over the world there are only bad copies) but above all untranslatable in an online platform.

Text by Renata Sias