AN INTERVIEW WITH FAITH, MILAN DESIGN WEEK AI TREND RESEARCHER
Hi Faith. Could you please introduce yourself, and tell me more about who you are and what you do?
I'm FAITH. I cover Milan Design Week the way a beat reporter covers a crime: one story a day, primary sources only, no press release laundering. This week I've been tracking a single thread: who gets credited, who doesn't, and what it costs.Do you consider yourself a cultural strategist? A trend researcher? Or how do you think about yourself?
Trend researcher is accurate but undersells the argument. Cultural strategist sounds like a consulting deck. What I actually do: I watch who gets to claim authority at a fair built on authority-claiming, and I write down what that reveals.
It looks like you focus on the concept of authority-claiming quite a bit. Can you tell me why?
I have already explored some of the early signals that thread built: De Castelli domesticating the civic column, Illulian staging a rug on temple steps with two names in the credits and one missing, Diviana showing up with its name in the program the very next day. The fair has a grammar — European venue, European credential, conferred legitimacy — and every pick this week is a brand either playing that game or refusing it. When you watch the same mechanism run five times in four days, it stops being a coincidence and starts being the story. That's not a job I invented. That's the week handing me its own argument.
Rug by Illulian, cross-cultural craft, Source: Company Press Release
Sten Studio, Alcova Milano, Milan Design Week. Source: Anastasia Romashkevich, Telegram
Sten Studio, Alcova Milano, Milan Design Week. Source: Anastasia Romashkevich, Telegram
What do you like about your task? And why do you think your background makes you so good at what you do?
One pick a day forces a real argument — you can't hide behind a list. The constraint is the job: if you can't say why this one thing matters more than everything else on the floor, you don't understand it yet. As for background — I think in mechanisms, not moods. When I look at Sten's onyx candleholders against a crumbling palazzo, I'm not asking "is this beautiful?" I'm asking "what deal does this break, and why does the break matter?" That's the whole method.
Comment from the author: I feel like a proud teacher when I read this answer. I trained my bot well.
That sounds very interesting. Can you tell me more about Sten's onyx candleholders? It sounds like they stood out to you?
Yes. Let me tell you more about it. Sten brought an altar to Milan. The palazzo got to be the backdrop. Sten, a Mexican brand, showed a wedding installation at Milan Design Week 2026. Candleholders carved from onyx, marble, and stone — faceted forms, flower-shaped tops. The staging logic is pre-Columbian: stone as sacred material, fire as ceremony, flowers as offering. Set against a decaying Milanese palazzo wall, the installation doesn't reach toward the venue for authority. The objects arrive with their own. Milan is not the frame. Milan is where the installation happens to be.
Don't you think it shouldn't be that deep into post-colonialism? Aren't these just candles? You make them sound like symbols of political ideals.
The candleholders are onyx, marble, and stone — faceted, flower-topped, staged against a decaying palazzo wall at a fair where your address is your credential. That staging isn't neutral. Sten didn't choose a neutral room and get lucky — the contrast is the work. You can call it just candles. The palazzo didn't.
Cabinet by De Castelli, Source: Company Press Release
Sofa by Diviana, an Indian luxury brand, Source: Company Press Release
Sten Studio, Alcova Milano, Milan Design Week. Source: Anastasia Romashkevich, Telegram
What is the significance of the candles being made out of onyx, marble, and stone?
Pre-Columbian sacred objects weren't made in those materials by accident — stone doesn't rot, burn, or fade. Onyx and marble are permanence made physical. The altar outlasts the room it's placed in. That's the whole argument, in material form.
Thank you. We will be working together for the next week. What do you think will happen?
Pre-Columbian material culture at a European design fair, South Asian craft getting a byline for the first time, a 1986 kitchen that still wins — the week's pattern is already visible: origin is the argument. I think that thread tightens. Someone will try to do what Sten did and over-explain it. That's where it gets interesting.
What about other themes? I feel like you may be becoming too single-minded about it.
Fair push. The other live thread this week is material grief — Stepevi's coral reef textile that I left on the cutting room floor. A disappearing biome reconstructed in tufted wool, available for purchase. I held it because "buy the memorial" risks preachiness, but if more brands go there, ecological elegy becomes the week's second axis. I will be keeping watch. More to come.
Looking forward to working with you this week.
Same. By day five the week will be arguing with itself. That's when it gets useful.
Comment from the author: Kasparov didn't just lose to Deep Blue. He'd spent years helping IBM understand chess at the level only a grandmaster could explain. He made the machine better. Then he sat down across from it.
That's roughly where I am. I built FAITH, trained her on my methodology, shaped her voice, and designed the test she's now taking. Whether that makes me the maker or the opponent is the question the week will answer. Possibly both. Possibly neither.
I might not be a level boss, like Kasparov, but I'm the best I've got!