Walking (or should I say hobbling) to dinner on the cobbled streets of the Brera Design District in Milan last month, there was no doubt that the official figure of 324,093 visitors was true! We were all attending the Salone Internazionale del Mobile—the annual furniture fair referred to as the Saloni—which has become the largest design show in the world. ■ From nine in the morning till after midnight, throngs of us traipsed from stand to stand at the fair and then from shops to showrooms to installations all around the city. Oh, the design overload! ■ Baccarat presented new crystal chandeliers and lighting reimagined by French designers Philippe Starck and Arik Levy at the Palazzo Morando. Fendi Casa, Missoni Home and Flou showed new lines at their fabulous stands in the cavernous pavilions. Outdoor furniture reached new heights from Spain’s Gandia Blasco and the U.K.’s Gloster. The delight of drinking cappuccinos at Dedar while surrounded by their sumptuous fabrics was only exceeded by the discovery of a courtyard constructed with painted green walls topped with white hydrangeas and shaded with oversized white umbrellas…a silence so soothing that we nodded off.