No shortcuts
The furniture sector is an important piece in the Made In Italy jigsaw. Another sold-out Salone del Mobile exhibition in Milan in April, in spite of the state of the world, is good news for the leather sector.
The Made In Italy phenomenon is a source of great pride for the country’s manufacturers of leather and finished products that use leather. The same is true for companies in all sectors of the economy, for the government and for the entire country. It is so fundamental to the economy that the ministry that has responsibility for industry, commerce, productivity and economic development has officially been known, since 2022, as the ministry of enterprises and Made In Italy. In Italian, its name is ‘Il Ministero delle Imprese e del Made In Italy’.
There is an irony in the term for celebrating the excellence of Italian design and manufacturing being in English, but no one seems to mind too much. In an essay called ‘The Barbarians’, Turin-based writer Alessandro Baricco argues that many of the changes in our use of language in this century are about shortcuts, about conveying an idea with speed rather than going into the idea in depth.
Very specific combination
Here, there is further irony because, apart from linguistically, Made In Italy is the opposite of a shortcut. “Made In Italy is about a very specific combination of factors rarely found together at the same level elsewhere,” says Maria Porro in the busy build-up to the 2026 Salone del Mobile furniture exhibition in Milan. Ms Porro has been the president of Salone del Mobile since 2021. She is the first woman to hold this position and the youngest in the history of the exhibition, which is often described as the largest event of its kind in the world.
As usual, exhibition space at the 2026 edition of Salone del Mobile was sold out well in advance of the gates opening on April 21. Furniture, lighting, kitchen and bathroom design companies occupied a total of 169,000 square-metres of space at the Rho exhibition centre. Over the six days of the exhibition, organisers were expecting hundreds of thousands of visitors to attend. Maria Porro believes that Made In Italy is one of the factors that brings design professionals and members of the public to the Salone Del Mobile year after year.
Close connections
“First, there is the strength of the supply chain,” she explains. “In Italy, design, production and material sourcing are closely interconnected. This allows for direct control over the entire process, but more importantly, for a continuous dialogue between designers and manufacturers.”
Secondly, there is what she calls a deep-rooted design culture. She lives and breathes this because, in addition to her role at the Salone, she is a senior executive of her family’s furniture company. Based in the Brianza area, a furniture manufacturing hub north of Milan, the company, Porro Spa, was founded by her great-grandfather 100 years ago. It specialises in tables, chairs, sofas, bookcases and other products that blend, the company says, a range of upholstery materials, including leather, with the woodworking techniques of the past. “In Italy, design has never been only about form,” Ms Porro continues. “It has always been about function, innovation, material research and the ability to interpret how people live and evolve. This leads to products that are intelligent and durable.”
A third aspect is what she calls “the capacity for transformation”. Unpacking this, she expresses the view that the Italian furniture industry has the ability to start from simple raw materials (wood, glass, aluminium, leather) and turn them into “objects of great aesthetic and functional value, designed to last over time”. There are no shortcuts to this. If there were, everyone would be able to do it.
How to create value
Ms Porro continues: “This is made possible by careful control of production processes, the transmission of artisan know-how and continuous investment in technology. Even traditional materials, often ancient and natural, can be constantly reinterpreted through innovation and sustainability. Italian manufacturers create value through their ability to transform raw materials into something that carries identity, performance and longevity. It is not simply that Made in Italy adds value as a label. It adds value because it represents a system in which culture, industry and craftsmanship work together.”
In recent comments, the president of the Salone del Mobile has put a figure of €52 billion on the annual value of the furniture value chain in Italy. This includes all the hard work that goes on in furniture manufacturing companies, but also in producing some components and materials, as well as in sub-contracting and specialised services. She makes it clear to World Leather that the value of the leather that furniture companies consume is not included in the €52 billion.
National tanning industry association UNIC calculates that 15% of the leather its member companies produce goes to customers in the furniture sector, but, clearly, not all of these are in Italy. “We do not monitor leather as part of our calculations,” Ms Porro says, “but the figure you mention, of around 15% of leather going into furniture, is consistent with the cross-sector nature of the Italian production system. Leather serves multiple industries. This ability to operate across sectors is one of the strengths of our industrial model.”
On the road
This capacity for serving different markets while keeping quality levels high is also one of the reasons for the appeal of Made In Italy in export markets, she believes. The country’s furniture sector brings in around half of its revenues from customers in other countries. The organisers of the Salone Del Mobile are keen to keep promoting the event among furniture buyers in key export markets as a means of helping the sector grow.
To this end, they organised a series of roadshow events to promote the show to US designers and buyers earlier this year. They describe the US market as one of the most important export destinations for Italian furniture manufacturers, with revenues of €1.9 billion in the first 11 months of 2025. This puts the US second only to France in terms of value. The roadshow events took place in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. “In markets like the US, these initiatives are essential in helping us build direct relationships with companies, architects, developers and buyers,” Ms Porro says. “They create opportunities for understanding local needs better and for positioning Italian design more effectively within those contexts.” She also points out that these roadshows allow the Salone to operate as more of a year-round platform, rather than as a single annual event.
They produce results, she insists, in the immediate and, especially, the longer term. The organisers of the Salone Del Mobile say they will notice a boost in the number of visitors to the exhibition in Milan and also in the quality of the connections Italian furniture brands are able to establish with them. The US is among the top-ten countries of origin of visitors to the exhibition. “But the most important outcomes develop over time,” the president says, “with new projects, collaborations and business opportunities.” Again, it is not about trying to take shortcuts. “The Salone acts as a catalyst,” she continues. “The roadshow initiates the dialogue, the Salone concentrates and amplifies it and then the process continues well beyond that. It is part of a broader strategic cycle.”
Middle Eastern eye
Similar roadshow events have taken place recently in other parts of the world, too, including in New Delhi and Mumbai. And as part of this effort to increase interest in exciting export markets, the Salone and Italy’s high-end furniture brands have been working hard to build new connections to the architects, designers and other customers in the Middle East. At the end of 2025, they worked with the ministry of culture in Saudi Arabia to launch Red In Progress, a roadshow in Riyadh in which 38 Italian furniture brands took part.
This was before war broke out in the region at the end of February. Strikes on Gulf States have included drones and missiles hitting Saudi Arabia. Maria Porro remains convinced that, if ceasefires can hold and the war stops, this can still be “one of the most dynamic regions” for Italian design. The example of Saudi Arabia, where there are already pilot projects involving Italian furniture companies, is particularly significant. They are working with local partners who are developing new hotels, for example. Figures she has seen suggest that more than 160,000 new hotel rooms, all of which will need furniture, will become available in Saudi Arabia between now and 2033. “Design is part of a broader transformation there, affecting urban, economic and cultural life,” she adds.
She concludes that when geopolitical conditions stabilise, these relationships will resume “relatively quickly”, precisely because they are built on strong foundations. There is a clear complementarity, she insists. On the one hand, there are markets with strong investment capacity and ambitious development plans. On the other, there is Made In Italy, which offers quality, expertise and reliability. “Of course, continuity and cultural sensitivity will remain essential, but the groundwork is already in place,” she says.
High-end, leather-upholstered Italian furniture in a business lounge in Riyahd. Credit: Salone Del Mobile
