What's so bad about brands taking over Milan design week?

Milan Design Week recently showcased a shift toward playful, experiential installations, with food-themed designs and large-scale inflatables emerging as dominant trends. Designers increasingly utilized food as a creative language, seen in projects like Leila Gohar’s fruit-shaped carousels and stone-mimicking supermarket displays, reflecting broader cultural shifts toward home-centric dining and aspirational consumption. Simultaneously, inflatable furniture and structures, such as IKEA’s latest chair and Moncler’s massive octopus installation, offered high-impact, transportable solutions that prioritize visual engagement and social media shareability. These trends highlight a growing tension between the event’s roots in independent design discovery and the rising presence of major global brands. While some critics view this corporate saturation as a negative development, others argue it reflects the current economic landscape, suggesting that the festival’s future requires a strategic redesign to balance commercial interests with support for emerging talent.