‘Milan in April turns into the Glastonbury of Design – a huge explosion of ideas, colours, shapes and functions, a massive influx of design obsessives all seeking the latest ideas. This year we have acknowledged the need for a place to stop, to refuel, to catch up on the newest concepts and latest designs and share the full excitement of our latest products. We’ve chosen this iconic 1950’s Galleria and Cinema so that we can fully embrace the delicate balance of commerce, culture and entertainment that makes Milan the best Design Festival of the year.’    – Tom Dixon

This April Tom Dixon bring MULTIPLEX to Milan – in the iconic Cinema and Galleria on via Manzoni – the epicentre of the city’s cultural and luxury shopping district.

The enormous 840-seat cinema and historic Galleria play host to a combination of culture, entertainment and commerce – the very essence of Milan Design Week.

MULTIPLEX becomes a platform for fresh ideas, classic design and innovation, with a series of collaborators working on radical interventions on the theme of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.

Yesterday – The Veterans

Pylon Chair by Tom Dixon

Initially manufactured in Tom’s London metalwork shop many moons ago – and subsequently under license for 20 years of Italian production – these instantly recognizable designs are finally brought back home.

Re-engineered, recoloured and reinvigorated for relaunch, their graphic, pop-art silhouettes feel just as fresh today as they did yesterday and will still be collector’s pieces tomorrow.

The Veterans include: S Chair, Bird Chaise Lounge, Pylon Chair and Jack Lamp.

Today – New collections and pop-up shops

Cut Cluster by Tom Dixon

In the Galleria Manzoni, a classic shopping arcade is brought to life with a multitude of boutiques, some created by ourselves to highlight our newest products, some curated or collaborated on with our friends.

Mirror Ball Standing Chandelier by Tom Dixon

The Galleria will host: the Chandelier store, a celebration of luminosity in the year of Euroluce, showcasing our latest adventures in futuristic optics; the Haberdashery shop, where they have finally gone soft with the new Super-Texture range ; the Perfumery, where the new olfactory adventures come to life; the Antique centre, where Tom Dixon veterans are coming home and sit in a collector’s environment; the Rubber shop – Pirelli motorbikes and oil spill, rubber and chewing gum, all get dark and dirty in the workshop.

Cut Lights:

Cut Chrome Cluster by Tom Dixon

Futuristic and faceted, Cut is an exercise in optics.  Its space-age mirror finish when off transforms to reveal a translucent kaleidoscopic gem when switched on. Hypnotising reflections of the luminous orb within repeat infinitely within the diamond cut, vacuum metallised interior.

Cut Chrome and Smoke by Tom Dixon

Let’s celebrate the luminosity with a series of pendants which are another leap forward in the deep investigation of futuristic optics.

Cut Chrome and Smoke Cluster by Tom Dixon

Tube Lights:

Tube Light by Tom Dixon

Another lighting series that features cylindrical floor lamps and pendants with a laser-cut perforated exterior.

Tube Light by Tom Dixon

Melt Lights:

Melt Surface by Tom Dixon

Squashed, squeezed, distorted and moulded into a flatter blob, Melt’s extraordinary luminosity has found new applications on wall, ceiling or floor. With its instantly recognisable metallised effect, this latest evolution of Melt is now destined to be mounted on any surface and is rated for both indoors or outdoors, from the bathroom to the ballroom.

Melt Surface by Tom Dixon

Super-Texture

Super-Texture by Tom Dixon

After years of metallic experiments, here it is SUPER-TEXTURE collection. It is the first foray into weaving, sewing and embellishing where Tom Dixon look at extreme textures of velvets, boucles and knits. Comprising of six textures (Soft, Deco, Boucle, Fleck, Check, Line) and designed to be stacked and combined, textiles act as a playground for tactility and a big canvas for colour.

Tomorrow – Delaktig by Tom Dixon for IKEA

Delaktig by Tom Dixon for IKEA

Tom Dixon collaboration with IKEA–  is a ‘living-platform’ designed as an open source aluminum frame, a “platform for living” that can be transformed through third-party add-ons.

“Delaktig is an experiment that challenges the conventional methods of creation and distribution of furniture and explores the notions of adaptability and future-proofing,” Tom Dixon said.

Delaktig sketch

“I think this is the kind of project that more and more companies are going to have to look at,” said Tom Dixon at last year’s press conference. “How you (a) bring longevity into something but (b) also flexibility into objects as well, just to reflect the way that everybody’s living these days.”

Delaktig Workshop

Dixon has also been working with 75 students from the Royal College of Art and Parsons School of Design in New York and Tokyo to invent new ways to modify the bed.  “It’s turned into a raft, it’s turned into a double decker bed, a sofa system for airports,” Dixon said of the student projects. “It’s a bed first but it can turn into anything.”

Delaktig Workshop

As part of this DELAKTIG project and its open-source ambitions Tom Dixon collaborated with BEMZ, a Swedish textile design company specialising in custom-made covers for IKEA furniture to create a unique collection of covers.

IKEA Festival

Throughout the week, IKEA will also run a Film Festival in the huge MULTIPLEX Cinema. Exclusive movies about creativity and radical design will be shown several times a day, as well as feature films on ‘Date Nights’. The Film Festival is free and open to all (no need to book in advance).

Multiplex by Tom Dixon Invitation @ Salon Milan 2017