Salone del Mobile launches collectible-design showcase for rare luxury pieces
Salone Raritas put about 25 collectible-design players inside Salone’s main halls, turning Milan’s biggest fair into a hunt for rare, one-off objects.
At a fair that spread across more than 169,000 square metres and drew more than 1,900 exhibitors from 32 countries, Salone Raritas made scarcity the point. The new collectible-design showcase opened inside Hall 9 at Fiera Milano Rho, with a tightly edited roster of about 25 entities and the kind of objects that are bought less like decor and more like future heirlooms.
Running from April 21 to 26, 2026, as part of the 64th edition of Salone del Mobile.Milano, Raritas was built for the serious buyer: the collector after a one-off lamp, the architect sourcing a rare table for a hospitality project, the interior designer who wants a piece with provenance, not just polish. The fair described the initiative as dedicated to collectible design, limited editions, design antiques and high-end creative craftsmanship, and the name itself, drawn from Latin, pointed straight at rarity and uniqueness. Maria Porro put the shift plainly: “Unique and research pieces, limited editions and high-end creative manufacturing are entering fully into the heart of the Salone for the first time.”
The setup matched the ambition. Formafantasma, the studio led by Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi, designed the exhibition as a modular landscape of customisable islands rather than traditional booths, with a central lounge built for meetings, networking and negotiations. That matters because collectible design is as much about conversation as it is about display: the best pieces usually come with maker reputation, limited production, and a paper trail that tells a buyer exactly why the object is worth keeping. Annalisa Rosso curated the section, and the whole thing was framed as a new chapter for a market that has often lived on the edges of design fairs, in galleries and off-site presentations.
The first edition already had the feel of a serious collecting room. WWD counted 28 exhibitors and noted an international crowd that included the kind of collectors and designers usually associated with Design Miami or Matter and Shape. Nilufar and Galerie Mitterrand were among the galleries in the mix, while historic Murano glassmaker Salviati and Sabine Marcelis, who presented Plume, brought the range from legacy craft to contemporary experimentation. That balance is the real gift logic here: if you are buying at this level, you are not just choosing an object, you are buying scarcity, authorship and the confidence that the piece will still matter when the rest of the room has changed.
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