Stone-Ideas.com

Maybe it is not a major trend, but it is a development that is important for the natural stone sector: in furniture, interior design and decoration, the material used in products has been receiving greater attention for some time now.

The 2026 Salone del Mobile.Milan trade fair, where trends for these creative sectors are set, had adopted the motto “A Matter Of Salone” (A material/theme for the fair). The intention is to focus not only on the form of the objects on display and their function, but also on the materials from which they are made.

One of the posters for the campaign (see photo) showed a petal, a sponge, wood and stone. Specific characteristics are attributed to each: “Stone represents the origin, a symbol of simplicity without frills,” it states. The petal embodies the sensuality of the materials, wood represents humanity’s connection with nature, and the sponge embodies the malleability of the materials.

References to the materials used also appear more frequently in the press releases of many companies. The Portuguese firm Maeve, for example, uses the motto “From earth to object – Before the object, there is matter”, and the Italian ceramics firm Sicer writes “There is a moment when matter ceases to be merely origin and becomes intention.”

When it comes to materials, the focus is always on the processing, often poetically described in press materials as a “metamorphosis”.

This is an important area for natural stone, where the product is still frequently created through traditional stonemasonry.

Another aspect of this development is the focus on surfaces, which has been evident for some time now in both natural stone and competing materials such as ceramics and engineered stone.

Here too, the stone sector has an excellent opportunity to capitalize on this trend.