Utility cool

Suddenly, long-forgotten bog-standard bits get a design overhaul. Check out Corian Loves Missoni’s lazy susan-style dining table (corian-loves-missoni.com), Marcel Wanders’s crazily patterned carpet tiles (colorline.nl), Jasper Morrison’s Crate Wardrobe for the great Brits Established & Sons (establishedandsons.com), and Floor to Heaven’s wood-grain-effect rugs (floortoheaven.com).

Eccentric

Designers embraced quirkiness and individuality. Standout pieces included Winnie Lui’s found-object chandelier for Innermost (innermost.co.uk) and Tord Boontje’s hand-enamelled fig-leaf wardrobe for the launch of Meta (madebymeta.com), a seriously high-end new company.

Retro elegance

From Armani Casa’s collection, which referenced 1930s Hollywood (armanicasa.com), to the elegant lines of Autoban’s offerings (www.autoban-delaespada.com), feminine scale meant smaller was beautiful.

Precious metals

Silver, gold and more gold were everywhere and on everything, from the subtle, such as Philippe Starck’s installation of amorphic silver-framed mirrors for XO (xo-design.com), to the ostentatious, as in Marcel Wanders’s chandelier showers for the Swarovski Crystal Palace (swarovskisparkles.com).

New-wave upholstery

Designers continue to rework the classic chesterfield look. Check out Arik Ben Simhon’s fetishistic vinyl and leather chairs (arikbensimhon.com ) for the most modern interpretation.

Baroque’n’roll

Think curlicues and swirls, carving and cutouts: decoration for decoration’s sake is back. Marcel Wanders (yes, him again) and the Moooi crowd (moooi.com) were key exponents of this look.

Geek chic

Technology was taken to another level with ingeniously simple ideas such as the Missoni-striped Corian radiator, and a baroque looking glass that is also a television by the Korean company DND Casa (dndcasa.com), turning boring essentials into objects of beauty.

The bright stuff

From tangerine to teal and aubergine to grass green, eye-popping brights have never looked so good. Edra’s vibrant storage unit (edra.com) shows the colour spectrum at its best, the British company Modus had some brilliantly bold seating (modusfurniture.co.uk) and the Established & Sons Stack drawers were the talk of the show.

NAMES TO KNOW

Marcel Wanders (marcelwanders.com): wherever you looked, there was his work, often accessorised by the man himself, followed and fawned over by an adoring crowd of admirers.

Jaime Hayon (hayonstudio.com): for his bonkers aeroplane installation for Bisazza, his Artquitect bathroom range and his collaboration with Lladro.

Nigel Coates: back with a bang. His eccentric Scubism range for Fratelli Boffi (fratelliboffi.it) was the highlight of his new work.

Prices are not available, as pieces have yet to go into production

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