Tomato Red Is This Season’s It Color

If you weren’t already craving tomato red sauce the moment you stepped off the plane in Milan earlier this month, an eyeful of the new designs on show around town might have been enough to make your mouth water. A juicy and tomato-y hue was everywhere at Milan Design Week, from the table settings at Laila and Nadia Gohar’s Gucci Vault dinner (their fanciful new entertaining brand Gohar World even sells a tomato bonnet, should you need one) to Alcova, a design showcase in a crumbling former military hospital, where Lara Bohinc’s new Peaches collection was sheathed in the eye-popping It color. 

Picture the produce market staple and dial the color up a notch—dare we even liken it to the glowing red neon of Milan’s Bar Basso sign? It’s been more than two years since we had a proper Salone del Mobile, and the town was painted red. Early signs, we think, of a larger color trend, infiltrating the market, Milan first.

At the 19th-century neoclassical Museo Poldi Pezzoli, designer Luca Nichetto—art director of French furniture brand La Manufacture—devised a blood orange intervention within by showcasing 50 new furnishings by 17 designers all in the same color. “It guides guests through the installation to see new iterations of iconic pieces that show functionality, minimalism, playful flourishes, and Italian craftsmanship,” he explains of the fil rouge which leads visitors through the space. Other product designers had a similar idea. At Louis Vuitton’s Objets Nomades presentation, the Campana Brothers’ Bulbo chair wore the color du jour, as did the new and fully-upholstered Sacha chair by Philippe Malouin for Resident and Paul Smith’s new furniture for De Padova. Formafantasma’s new lighting collection with Maison Matisse included electrifying tomato red fixtures, and at Versace Home’s striking presentation, crimson took over furnishings as well as the walls, giving major Black Lodge vibes (Twin Peaks fans know).