Milan - Catwalks are normally a showcase for fashion models in designer clothing. But every spring the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, also known as the Milan Furniture Fair, presents furniture fit for a catwalk. The event is a trendsetter in the world of design, and a common thread running through it this year was the growing importance of "sustainability."

"Until recently, a product's design was central. Now interest is shifting to its environmental sustainability," noted the Italian company Cosmit, the fair's organiser. The sustainability theme was strongest at special exhibitions like Greenergy Design, where several well-known international designers strutted their stuff.

"Furniture manufacturers are also jumping on the bandwagon or have already, and sometimes quite successfully," observed Brit Dieckvoss of the Hamburg-based trade journal Moebelkultur. One of them is the natural wood specialist Team 7 of Austria, whose description for its entire collection is "design meets nature."

The Italian furniture maker Cappellini takes a more experimental approach. Its Love Tables, designed by Stephen Burks, are made of eco-friendly papier-mache and non-toxic adhesives. And they are produced, with a bow to political correctness, in Africa.

A lot of plastic furniture is also coming out, and not only from companies like Italy's Kartell that are well known for it. Here new trails are being blazed as well. The Italian company Plank collaborated with the German chemical concern BASF on the MYTO cantilever chair, designed by Konstantin Grcic. The chair is stackable, lightweight, and comes in bright colours.

Another eyecatcher is the comeback of styles popular in the 1980s: cushy upholstered leather chairs, neon hues, and heavy tables of glass and stone. As far as colours are concerned, the watchword could be "anything goes." Apart from neon colours, Dieckvoss has spotted pastels and subdued shades such as mustard yellow, petrol, and medium blue.

A focal point of luxury is the kitchen. "The kitchen today is the room where people come together, the heart of the house, a creative laboratory," as Cosmit put it. Characteristic of a modern kitchen is the generous use of stainless steel, large pull-out elements, and round kitchen islands. Prominent cooker hoods are also playing an ever greater role.

In the view of trend researchers, the turn toward sustainability will shape furniture design in the years ahead. But it remains to be seen whether gestures like clothes hangers resembling trees - Baobab by MDF Italia, for example, or Tree Hooked by the Dutch company Van Esch - will indeed develop into a new movement. (dpa)