Deoron — an independent curatorial platform founded in 2021 — returns to Milan Design Week, and looking through the list of studios and designers on show, we couldn’t be happier. Why? Because a new trend seems to be emerging in the world of product design — one we absolutely love and that will take center stage in many of Deoron’s selected projects: metal.

From April 20 to 26, 2026, the space at Via Padova 11 will transform into a pulsating organism where steel, light, and sound interact, creating an environment that speaks of matter but also of introspection. We couldn’t help but highlight the projects we’re most excited to see in person — the ones at the top of our wishlist.

Boyo Studio

The Italian brand Boyo Studio presents Contour Collection, a series of cake stands and trays in 18/10 stainless steel that turn the table into a liquid sculpture. Two finishes, Luminous Satin and Silk Mirror, reveal two sides of metal: one soft, material, almost skin-like; the other ultra-polished, sharp, capable of reflecting and distorting the surrounding space.

Electric Architects

With the Vice Consumption series, Electric Architects pushes metal to the edge of provocation. Candelabras, étagères, and smoking devices become true architectures of awareness, reflective sculptures that force the user to confront their own actions.
Particularly striking is Vice Masquerade, where smoking becomes ritual and mask: an object that merges the aesthetics of a weapon with that of an ex-voto, where reflection replaces the face. It is design that reveals itself through the very act of concealment.

Gast Studio

With its vases, Gast Studio introduces an interesting fracture. Metal disappears, but its language remains. The forms appear digitally generated, almost unstable, then brought back into matter through ceramics. It’s a constant short circuit between CGI and craftsmanship, between simulation and gesture. The result is never fully controlled — and that’s exactly where error becomes possibility.

IRL

Alongside, IRIL develops a quieter yet equally coherent research: a presence that does not impose itself but layers into space, contributing to the suspended atmosphere that Deoron builds piece by piece.

Jannis Schäfer

The studio of Jannis Schäfer follows a simple principle: “material leads, idea follows.” His Silver Platter originates from a steel panel recovered from a dismantled kitchen, cleaned, polished, and hammered by hand in a single session. The result is a living surface marked by gesture, telling the memory of the material. A manifesto of emotional sustainability, even before environmental sustainability.

LAÔMA ATELIER

Sisters Laura and Martine Feiereisen of LAÔMA ATELIER expand their research between body and space with the Pierced Cosmic Flower Chair: a perforated steel chair that resembles an oversized jewel, a cosmic ornament meant not for the body, but for the environment.
Form and ornament coincide, function becomes sculpture. It is a gesture of formal freedom that brings the sensuality of metal into a new territory: intimacy with space.

LHOTO

LHOTO brings metal to its most essential state. A small table made entirely from aluminum sheets, without screws, glue, or hidden elements. Just cutting and interlocking. The structure is visible, readable, inevitable. It is a design that subtracts rather than adds.

Louis Wuhrmann

Along a similar but more rigorous line, Louis Wuhrmann develops an almost didactic approach: every choice is explicit, every element has a precise function. Metal becomes a way to make design thinking visible. There is no ambiguity here — only pure structure.

Objects Ark

With OBJECTS ARK, metal enters into dialogue with time. Objects that seem to belong to another era, yet function perfectly in the present. Essential, almost ritual forms that transform everyday use into a more conscious gesture.

RE.PETE Design

RE.PETE Design moves in a similar but more material direction. The Melt series, somewhere between a candle and an oil lamp, brings design back to a primal dimension. Bronze and aluminum become containers of light, tools for building a slower experience. It is not just lighting — it is time flowing.

Salak

With ZEN Shelf, Salak proposes a steel column that rotates and transforms: from bookshelf to bench, from storage to sculptural element. Its proportions are designed to hold vinyl records, yet its identity remains ambiguous, suspended between design and architecture.

Slash Objects

From the New York scene comes Arielle Assouline-Lichten with Slash Objects, merging architecture with the sensuality of materials. Her X Deck, a DJ console sculpted in polished metal, is a contemporary altar dedicated to music. The material shines and breathes, revealing the marks of its making, as if every reflection held a story.

Stack

Stack explores the relationship between object and space. There are no fixed functions, only possible configurations. Elements behave like systems, capable of adapting and transforming. Metal becomes infrastructure rather than form. It is a design that never concludes, but remains open.

Hsiang Han Hsu x TENDERFLAME

With Hsiang Han Hsu, the project moves into an even more radical dimension: that of the unstable element. Collaborations with combustion systems turn fire into a design material. It is not decoration, but an integral part of the object. Form does not fully control it — it accompanies it. In this case, metal is the limit, the boundary between what can be designed and what remains unpredictable.

Vincent Laine

With Vincent Laine, everything returns to a minimal gesture. A sheet of stainless steel, progressively bent until it becomes a seat. The Incremental Collection is exactly this: a continuous transformation without interruption. There is no construction, only evolution. The metal retains the memory of every fold, every step. It is solid, but not rigid — structured, yet still in motion.

Yeonsu Na

Finally, Korean designer Yeonsu Na brings irony and lightness into the cold world of metal. Her Emerging Absurdity series transforms small everyday inconveniences into surreal and affectionate objects. It’s impossible not to be captivated by the concept and execution of the mini umbrella for cigarettes. Behind the absurdity, however, lies a tender reflection on the pressure of efficiency and the right to irony in our perfectly polished lives.

Among many other projects and international designers, Deoron will fuel our passion for metal — which is increasingly less about surface and more about language. It shines, reflects, deforms, and forces us to look inward and learn to see the world through its reflections.

Deoron will be open from April 20 to 26 at Via Padova 11 and is part of the Porta Venezia Design District program.