Milan Design Week: Stella McCartney x Cole & Son

Stella McCartney x Cole & Son: Two iconic British brands create exclusive sustainable wallpaper for Milan Design Week 2022.

Stella McCartney’s “Future of Fashion: An innovation conversation with Stella McCartney” has launched at the 60th annual Salone del Mobile, the world’s largest furniture fair. The installation was hosted at CASELLI 11-12 within the historic Porta Nuova gate in Milan, which was open to the public from 7 to 12 June.

The exhibit was in partnership with Bank of America, who in 2021 made a $1.5tn commitment to sustainable finance, including $1tn to help finance a low carbon planet. This is the second edition of this evolving and travelling installation, which leverages Stella McCartney’s current achievements to inspire future actions and follows its successful unveiling at COP26 in Glasgow.

Stella McCartney’s work is aligned with the Terra Carta – the guiding document of the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), of which Stella is a member and is co-chaired by His Royal Highness Prince Charles and Brian Moynihan, Bank of America Chairman and CEO. The SMI encourages collaboration, innovation and puts sustainability at the heart of the private sector.

“Material innovation is the future of our planet, and design is what makes it desirable. The Future of Fashion exhibit brings these worlds together, placing pioneering products like my Frayme Mylo™️ mycelium handbag alongside a mushroom infinity room and our first-ever interiors partnerships – all hosted within Milan’s historic Porta Nuova, bridging the past with a better tomorrow. I am incredibly excited to showcase what we have achieved for Mother Earth and our fellow creatures.” – Stella McCartney.

Summer 2022

Continuing the Summer 2022 collection and campaign’s theme of fungi are the future of fashion and our planet, the 200-square-metre installation combines cutting-edge fashion and design. It will also introduce Stella McCartney’s first-ever interiors partnerships – including collaborations with iconic Italian furniture maker B&B Italia as well as heritage British wallpaper house Cole & Son.

Salone del Mobile is a laboratory for design experimentation, innovation and cross-pollination, making it the perfect platform to introduce the creative changemakers of today to Stella’s solutions for our shared tomorrow. Future of Fashion invites the world to discover the limitless possibilities of material innovation for creating a more nature-positive market.

Fungi Forest

As two renowned international brands, Stella McCartney x Cole & Son are taking the Summer 2022 Fungi Forest toile de Jouy print and creating a new wallcovering offering in rich tones of Burgundy and Navy.

The latest wallpaper has also been printed on a new eco substrate derived from 79% renewable fibres whose manufacturing process uses 30% less greenhouse gases than traditional non-woven wallcoverings. This makes Fungi Forest Cole & Son’s most sustainable wallpaper to date.

Stella McCartney’s fascination with fungi is hardly anything new. Along with a flurry of other fungi related campaigns, including releasing the first ever mushroom leather bag in October 2022 (going on sale commercially this July).

Not only is the move into interiors new for Stella McCartney, but the collaboration also commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Le Bamole armchair. As part of the highlights at Milan Design Week 2022, B&B Italia and Stella McCartney unveiled a rework of B&B Italia’s iconic Le Bambole armchair upholstered in Stella McCartney’s hand-drawn Fungi Forest Burgundy.

The armchair isn’t the only piece to have been wrapped in the famous print, with the likes of Timothée Chalamet spotted wearing the hand-drawn Fungi Forest blue suit last year at the London premiere of Dune. This was originally designed by Mario Bellini in 1972. Stella McCartney has hinted there will be more to come in this space.