Egyptian designers join the global design conversation at Milan Design Week

🏘️ An epic cast of international designers, creatives, and appreciators flock to Milan every year in April for Milan Design Week (MDW) — the annual event sets the aesthetic and industrial standards for the rest of the world. This year at the Salone del Mobile, the world’s largest furniture trade fair, and the Fuorisalone, a city-wide festival that takes place in the historic districts of Milan, a number of Egyptian designers were spotted admiring… and exhibiting.

Five Egyptian designers who exhibited at this year’s MDW

#1- Laila Gohar: New York-based Egyptian food artist Laila Gohar ’s vegetable carousel was one of the most talked-about installations of 2026. Gohar, who was born and raised in Egypt, is an international celebrity in the world of design, art, and food. She’s been featured numerous times in Vogue, Elle, the New York Times, and the New Yorker, and she writes the How to Host It column in the Financial Times.

At MDW, Gohar transformed an 18th-century carousel into her personal dreamscape, swapping out horses for oversized, hand-sculpted fruits and vegetables as seating. The installation served as the global debut of her first ready-to-wear collection with Swedish brand Arket, adding yet another page to her ever-expanding multidisciplinary repertoire. She’s also the creator of Gohar World, a whimsical tableware and accessories brand that she founded with her sister, Nadia Gohar. Gohar also collaborates and creates food art for luxury brands such as Prada, Hermès, and Gucci.

#2- Amr Helmy: Veteran Egyptian designer Amr Helmy constructed a massive conceptual kitchen. “ Three Kitchens . Three Positions. One Question ” is a visual interpretation of Helmy’s book, Bauhaus: The Cairo Letters 1933-2033. The installation explores the evolution and functionality of domestic spaces.

On display were large, distinctive kitchen styles: Victorian, reflecting inherited routines; Bauhaus, focusing on clarity and functionality; and Isistron, focusing on automation. Each space is meant to highlight the evolution of kitchen use and design in a space that has served the same continuous function throughout history. Helmy uses the kitchen to ask the question, “should design move forward, step back, or stand still?”

#3- Rania El Kalla: Bio-material innovation was at the core of Rania El Kalla ’s exhibition. El Kalla, an acclaimed designer and CEO of Shell Homage biodegradable materials, pushed the boundaries of material science by introducing colorful and visually striking furniture made from entirely biodegradable and chemicalfree materials. El Kalla uses household waste like eggshells and nutshells to develop a compound that can be used for eco-friendly and aesthetically appealing home furnishings. Her work is timely, innovative, and proves that Egyptian-led material science has a seat at the table in transforming industrial food waste into high-end luxury goods.

#4- Nermin Habib: Ancient Egyptian cooling techniques meet contemporary climate action in ceramic artist Nermin Habib ’s “Olla Forms.” By re-engineering the traditional porous clay olla (water jug) into modular architectural elements and home accessories, Habib, a Bahrain-based Egyptian multidisciplinary artist and ceramicist, demonstrates how passive cooling can reduce energy consumption. Before she became fully focused on ceramics, Habib also dabbled in photography and filmmaking. Eleven years ago she made a prizewinning short film called Cairo Soul.

#5- Malak Elzeftawy and Rana Ayman: The artists introduced their modular Zahra Stool at Isola Design District. Inspired by ancient Egyptian design, the stool is made of sculpted wood and a modular woven linen seat. The innovative design allows for near-infinite weaving configurations and color options, reflecting the fluidity of contemporary, mobile lifestyles. The participation of the two young multidisciplinary product designers in MDW underscores a generational shift among younger Egyptian designers away from static, decorative objects toward adaptable, functional pieces.