SOPHISTICATED DESIGNS FOR HOMES, HOTELS, OFFICES
Design Mumbai 2025 did feel like a step forward — held again at Jio World Garden from November 26 to 29, it brought together names like Poltrona Frau, Hästens, and USM, alongside emerging Indian studios, all under one roof. It wasn’t just about furniture or lighting — it was a full conversation between global craftsmanship and local sensibility, with Istituto Marangoni and Vondom adding that cross-cultural thread. Given how much you value when design feels both intentional and connected — not just beautiful, but meaningful in how it brings people and ideas together.
Design Mumbai 2025 brought together over 80 brands, showcasing everything from furniture to kitchen and bathroom design across residential, hospitality, retail, and workplace spaces — not just as products, but as part of a larger conversation. The programme went beyond the booths, too, with talks, immersive installations, and moments built for connection, making it feel less like a trade fair and more like a gathering of people who actually care about how things are made and how they’re used.
The Design Mumbai Exchange talks didn’t just skim the surface — they dug into material innovation, sustainability, and where the industry’s actually headed, with people from architecture, design, and craft bringing real depth to the conversation. And beyond the talks, the installations weren’t just to look at — they were built to spark ideas, and the networking moments felt intentional, not just transactional. It made the whole event feel like a starting point, not just a showcase.
Poltrona Frau was a headline international exhibitor at the second edition of Design Mumbai, which took place from November 26–29, 2025, at the Jio World Garden in BKC, Mumbai. Presenting its timeless craftsmanship alongside its sister brand, Ceccotti Collezioni, the renowned Italian luxury furniture house anchored the trade show’s global section to showcase its latest high-end collections—including the poetic, elementally inspired ‘The Five Seasons’ series.
The exhibit highlighted the brand’s legendary leather-crafting heritage dating back to 1912, blending its trademark Pelle Frau® saddle leathers with sophisticated geometries and minimalist detailing for India’s top architects and interior designers.
Venezuelan kinetic artist Juan Gerstl designed a major, showstopping immersive entrance tunnel titled Journey Through India (also referenced as Travel Through India). The installation served as the starting point and primary gateway into the event.
Introduced by curator Mandana Karimi from OCD (Organized Consulting Design), Gerstl’s work mediated the entryway into the fair through a blend of physical participation and optical play.
The pavillion centering material intelligence, cross-cultural stories, and design that invites you in, not just impresses you from a distance. And beyond that entrance, Gerstl’s custom panel in the VIP lounge kept that conversation going, playing with geometry, color, and how space feels — not just how it looks. It made the whole experience feel like it had a thread, not just moments.
Emery Studio specializes in bespoke decorative lighting, tableware, and home décor solutions that serve as ultimate symbols of French luxury from its Sultanpur studio. The brand exclusively represents some of the world’s most iconic labels—including Lalique, Saint-Louis, Christofle, and Bernardaud—bringing centuries of exquisite craftsmanship to India. The new collection trends highlight crystal’s blend of historical elegance and modern design, featuring reinterpreted heritage pieces that are perfect for contemporary spaces.
At Design Mumbai 2025, the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) showcased sustainable design by highlighting temperate American hardwoods like red oak, cherry, and hard maple as alternatives to traditional South Asian teak. In collaboration with Bengaluru-based furniture maker Phantom Hands, AHEC presented an architectural 63-square-meter modular pavilion designed by David Joe Thomas of NUMBER65, alongside the “Re-editions” furniture collection, which featured pieces from international studios like x+l and Inoda + Sveje to demonstrate advanced woodwork and material characteristics.
At Design Mumbai 2025, held at Jio World Garden, Pasquale Junior Natuzzi (Chief Projects & Contract Officer of Natuzzi Italia) participated in a prominent panel discussion titled “Rethinking Hospitality: Context Over Concept.” Moderated by Sumisha Gilotra, Editor of Architect and Interiors India, the panel featured an esteemed lineup including award-winning Spanish designer Lucas Muñoz Muñoz and Harsh Vardhan of Studio Lotus. The session explored how modern hospitality design can move past generic trends and nostalgia, focusing instead on deep operational and architectural integration that honors local narratives and a true sense of place.
Beyond the panel, Natuzzi Italia showcased its “Rooted in Harmony” 2025 collection at Stand A16 during the four-day design event. The exhibition highlighted the brand’s signature Mediterranean heritage through organic, sculptural forms and highly adaptable furniture systems. Key pieces on display included the Fiore armchair by Marcantonio, inspired by the unfolding of flower petals, and the Amama modular island system by Andrea Steidl, an award-winning design celebrating fluid configurations and integrated structural functionality.
THE Park Hotels served as the official hospitality and design partner for Design Mumbai 2025, which took place from November 26–29, 2025, at the Jio World Garden in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). Building on their 2024 collaboration with Dutch designer Richard Hutten, the luxury boutique hotel group teamed up with acclaimed Spanish designer Lucas Muñoz Muñoz to create THE Park Hotels Café, a prominent site-specific installation at the exhibition. The café was entirely crafted using upcycled and repurposed materials salvaged from a nearby abandoned hotel property recently acquired by the group, showcasing a unique, sustainable intersection of avant-garde design and luxury hospitality.
The iconic Vividus bed by Hästens is featured prominently at Design Mumbai, representing the pinnacle of ultra-luxury sleep systems. Handcrafted entirely in Sweden, this masterpiece requires 300 to 600 hours of manual labor by master artisans who meticulously layer ethically sourced natural materials like horsehair, wool, cotton, and flax. Free from synthetic foams, it combines proprietary spring systems with bespoke configurations—including customizable firmness zones and 17 distinct cotton colorways—to create a uniquely buoyant, weightless sleep environment.
INODA+SVEJE, the acclaimed design studio founded by Kyoko Inoda and Nils Sveje, brought their signature fusion of Scandinavian and Japanese minimalism to Design Mumbai 2025 at the Jio World Garden. While originally established in Copenhagen and currently based in Milan (rather than Amsterdam), the duo captivated the fair’s audience through their celebrated partnership with Bangalore-based artisan collective Phantom Hands and the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC). Their showcase highlighted meticulously engineered, CNC-free furniture collections like Tangāli and Muṅgāru, demonstrating their mastery of organic curves, tactile hand-cane weaving, and seamless human-centric design
Lucas Muñoz Muñoz made a major impact at Design Mumbai 2025 by creating an experimental, on-site cafe installation for THE Park Hotels, applying the same “radical reuse” philosophy that defined his acclaimed Sancal CoLab exhibition space in Madrid. While the permanent 300-square-metre Madrid showroom was built as an “urban mine” that repurposed structural site waste from a 1966 brutalist building into functional modern interiors, his Mumbai project adapted this narrative into a live, six-day performance at the Jio World Garden.
By sourcing materials from a decommissioned hotel property, Muñoz built a fully operational pop-up dining environment out of salvaged items, seamlessly bridging his architectural interventions in Spain with a temporary, sustainable showcase in India.
The luxury Italian furniture brand Natuzzi Italia anchored its presence around the theme “Rooted in Harmony,” celebrating its rich Mediterranean heritage and commitment to sustainable craftsmanship. The brand’s centerpiece was the multi-award-winning Mirai collection, a modular sofa system designed by Andrea Steidl.
The award-winning Mirai collection is a modular sofa system designed for Natuzzi by Andrea Steidl, inspired by 13th-century Puglian architecture, whereas Muñoz was commissioned to design THE Park Hotels Café, an eco-conscious pop-up built entirely from repurposed refurbishment waste.
Roshni Karekar of SJK Architects is a featured speaker at the second edition of Design Mumbai 2025, participating in a panel discussion at the Design Mumbai Exchange focused on workplace design. Curated by Harsha Kotak (founder of Women in Office Design), the session brings together prominent design industry figures—including Pinakin Patel, Joanna Knight, and Johan Lindau—to explore critical contemporary architectural themes. The discussion specifically delves into the future of commercial environments, highlighting climate-responsive workplaces and the importance of transparency in sustainable workplace design.
SABBi was a featured design studio at Design Mumbai, which took place from November 26–29, 2025, at the Jio World Garden in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), Mumbai. Known for its distinct contemporary aesthetics, the studio showcased a series of masterfully crafted sculptural pieces designed for upscale interior spaces. Exhibiting alongside an elite lineup of global and emerging Indian talents, SABBi’s booth stood out as a highlight for visiting architects, interior designers, and design enthusiasts looking for bold, experimental forms.
The room styled by Hearty Muse Atelier at Design Mumbai 2025 is a masterful exploration of contemporary luxury, showcasing the studio’s evolution from high-end interior styling into bespoke craft and sculptural furnishings. Anchoring the layout are the studio’s signature handcrafted luxury rugs, which blur the line between functional design and fine art by utilising fluid, organic forms, earthy tones, and deeply sculpted high-low textures.
This textural warmth is seamlessly integrated with statement lighting and architectural furniture pieces, creating an intentional dialogue between traditional artisan heritage and modern opulence. Every element within the curation functions as a conversation starter, transforming the physical booth into an intimate, sophisticated lounge that perfectly represents the vanguard of contemporary Indian design.
The iconic String System by String Furniture made its major Indian debut with an official pavilion inauguration by Sven Östberg, the Consul General of Sweden in Mumbai. The showcase highlighted the timeless, modular Scandinavian functionality of the classic customizable String System, alongside the newly revitalized Pira G2 shelving line, the minimalist Center Center system, and pieces from the ergonomic Museum Collection. Known for its incredible versatility, the system allows users to seamlessly configure everything from living room bookshelves to kitchen racks in diverse finishes like Walnut, Oak, and Ash.
Lila, the Bangalore-based design-led children’s homeware specialist founded by architect Rubah Musvee, showcased its highly anticipated lila.rest collection at the inaugural Design Mumbai exhibition held at the Jio World Garden. Highlighting its philosophy of child-centric, modular longevity, the studio’s exhibit centered around the Morph Bed system—a premium, adaptable bed crafted from solid ash and sustainable birch plywood designed to evolve from a toddler platform into a raised loft bed.
Alongside the flagship bedding systems, Lila presented its full ecosystem of minimalist, certified child-safe furniture, including adjustable Levitate activity chairs, space-maximizing wall-mounted pegboards, and low-height toy storage solutions engineered to foster early independence and grow alongside the child.
The legacy brand Venjara Carpets made a spectacular debut by transforming its exhibition booth into an immersive, four-zone living archive curated by Aashna Anand and directed by fourth-generation visionary Aishaa Nensey. Tracing the brand’s textile journey from its 1961 origins, the showcase seamlessly guided visitors through the history and evolution of floor art—beginning with a nostalgic nod to traditional hand-knotted roots and reinterpreted Persian motifs, transitioning through mid-century Memphis-inspired optical illusions, and expanding into bold 1980s maximalist banana and bamboo silk shapes.
The exhibition culminated in a forward-looking sustainability zone spotlighting their Bahya Collection, which utilizes recycled PET yarn alongside a striking contemporary metal-mesh diwan collaboration with Studio Nyn, beautifully proving that archival heritage can seamlessly intertwine with poetic, modern innovation.
Shaman Ideas, a contemporary studio founded by designer Sharmila Mangwani, debuted its dynamic three-dimensional sculptural artworks at Design Mumbai 2025. Grounded in sacred geometry and the fluid continuity of Möbius strips, the studio’s creations meticulously transition from hand-cut paper models into engineered metal and fiberglass structures using advanced PVD and Duco finishes
Hovering between fine art, functional design, and structural engineering, featured installations like Trinwards and Interlocked Gold utilize contrasting textures, perforations, and light to explore the balance between stillness and motion, ultimately inviting viewers to slow down and sense the quiet force within each form.
The Anthropocene Bar is a prominent collectible furniture piece by Kohelika Kohli Karkhana showcased at Design Mumbai 2025. The piece serves as a sculptural meditation on the tension between permanence and impermanence, using sustainable and repurposed waste elements to anchor its visual design.
The Roman Bench is a limited-edition, sculptural furniture piece created by Kohelika Kohli Karkhana—the specialized collectible design atelier led by New Delhi-based architect and designer Kohelika Kohli.
The Plateau Coffee Table is a standout collectible furniture piece created by Kohelika Kohli Karkhana—the sculptural, limited-edition atelier founded by acclaimed New Delhi architect and designer Kohelika Kohli. Showcase highlights from Design Mumbai 2025 put this innovative brand in the spotlight as one of the key female-led studios reshaping contemporary Indian luxury.
At Design Mumbai 2025, the luxury furniture atelier Racconti made its grand debut by unveiling the Eterno collection, a sophisticated line that seamlessly bridges global design philosophies with master Indian craftsmanship. Envisioned by celebrated designers like Luca Erba and Luca Tornaghi, the collection features premium materials shaped into clean, timeless geometries tailored for intentional living spaces. Characterized by a mood of warm luxury, this debut positions Racconti as a pioneering force in the modern luxury furniture landscape.
FAZO Project was celebrated as one of the standout Indian design studios at the second edition of Design Mumbai 2025, held from November 26–29 at the Jio World Garden. Led by siblings Fatima Warsi and Zoheb Khan, the Mirzapur-based carpet studio showcased contemporary rugs that seamlessly blend handmade excellence with bold graphic shapes and varied pile textures, bridging ancestral weaving techniques with modern aesthetics. Exhibiting alongside prestigious global interior giants like Baccarat and Poltrona Frau, the female-led studio solidified its position as a key representative of homegrown luxury, material innovation, and contemporary Indian design on the world stage.
Baccarat showcased its legendary 260-year French crystal heritage at Design Mumbai, the international contemporary design exhibition held at the Jio World Garden in BKC, Mumbai. As a premier luxury headliner, the brand presented a stunning immersive lifestyle showcase featuring avant-garde contemporary designs, high-end home decor like the Solar Vase, and its world-renowned, show-stopping Zenith chandeliers.
The exhibition offered interior design professionals, architects, and luxury enthusiasts an intimate look into Baccarat’s meticulous, multi-generational hand-cutting and crystal-blowing techniques, solidifying its artistic footprint in India’s design landscape.
stem design stands out by doing more with less — their work feels precise, but never cold, blending craft and engineering with a quiet kind of poetry. It’s not just about clean lines, but about how a piece settles into a space, bringing clarity and a sense of calm without calling attention to itself. That balance — where restraint doesn’t mean emptiness, but intention — seems like it would resonate with you, especially when you’re drawn to things that feel both thoughtful and lived-in.
Arredatoreinterior doesn’t just make furniture — they shape pieces that feel like they’re holding space, not just filling it. There’s a quiet boldness in their work, where structure and emotion aren’t at odds but built into the same form. You can tell they’re not just asking how something should look or function, but how it should feel to live with — like each piece is shaped by curiosity, not just intent.
Sipping on a round of exotic, whisky-based cocktails from arthaus — bold, layered, and just the right kind of unexpected. It wasn’t just a drink, but a moment of crafted indulgence, where the spirit’s depth met inventive flair.
At the SOHO LOUNGE, an avocado sourdough toast that actually earned its place on the plate, paired with a chicken kathi roll that brought the kind of spice and warmth that only feels right in the middle of a long, slow afternoon. It wasn’t just lunch — it was one of those small, deliberate pleasures, the kind that sticks with you not because it was fancy, but because it was exactly what you wanted, exactly when you wanted it.
At Design Mumbai 2025, which took place at the Jio World Garden from November 26–29, contemporary design-and-build firm COCRE8 collaborated with the iconic Swiss brand USM Modular Furniture to showcase the future of flexible architecture. The immersive exhibition highlighted the legendary USM Haller modular system, demonstrating how its signature minimalist chrome framing can be configured for diverse workplace, residential, and retail settings. The partnership served as a major anchor for the B2B design fair, bridging precise Swiss engineering with India’s rapidly growing interior design and architecture communities.
Lagom Studio, a contemporary furniture brand rooted in minimalist craftsmanship, made a significant impact at the inaugural Design Mumbai trade fair held from November 6–9, 2024, at the Jio World Garden in BKC. Showcasing their signature balance of functionality and aesthetic restraint—inspired by the Swedish philosophy of lagom (“just the right amount”)—the brand utilized the high-profile platform to present curated residential collections alongside leading global design names.
The event marked a pivotal milestone for the studio, coinciding with their strategic expansion into physical retail and further establishing their footprint within the premium Indian design market.
