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There’s a version of Milan Design Week where you dutifully walk through antiseptic showrooms, collect tote bags, and eat a mediocre tramezzino at noon. And then there’s the version where you find yourself inside a 17th-century Baroque palace that has barely been open to the public, standing in front of furniture that somehow manages to feel both ancient and ruthlessly now. H&M HOME, making its Fuorisalone debut this April, is firmly in the second camp.
The brand has chosen to mark its Milan moment not with a quiet introduction but with a full-scale collaboration alongside Kelly Wearstler, one of the most visually audacious designers working today. It’s a pairing that makes immediate sense as Wearstler has built a career on the conviction that good design should be maximalist in feeling and rigorous in craft, while H&M HOME has spent nearly two decades proving that neither of those things needs to be the preserve of the wealthy. Together, they are presenting a conceptual installation at Palazzo Acerbi, a venue so atmospherically loaded, so dramatically Baroque, that even an empty room would feel like an event. Soaring columns, opulent frescoes, centuries of silence broken by contemporary furniture in wood, metal, ceramic, marble, and textile: the contrast is almost argumentative.
The collection carries is a first for both partners. For H&M Home, it’s their first furniture collection within a designer collaboration. For Wearstler, it’s her first time at Milan Design Week. “This is my Milan Design Week debut, and H&M HOME is the perfect partner,” she said. “Their global presence and genius for storytelling align perfectly with my vision. Bringing this collection to life in Milan and showing people how the pieces come alive in a real space — that’s what excites me.”
Evelina Kravaev-Söderberg, H&M HOME’s Head of Design & Creative, a Stockholm-based designer who has shaped the brand since its inception in 2007, two full years before it officially launched, describes the decision with the kind of quiet confidence that comes from knowing your moment. “Having a presence at Milan Design Week has long been a dream,” she said, “and with Kelly, we knew the moment was right.” When the Palazzo Acerbi presented itself as the venue, she adds, everything fell into place. One can believe it.
The installation is produced by Studio Boum and built around the collection’s guiding concepts: daily rituals, modular synergy, the idea that a well-designed object is less a possession than a companion to becoming. Each room in the palazzo offers a distinct sensorial dimension, not quite a mood board, not quite a home, but something more immersive than either. It is the kind of exhibition that invites you to slow down, to linger, to notice the quality of light shifting across a marble surface at different hours of the afternoon.
The installation is open to the public from 21 to 26 April 2026, at Palazzo Acerbi, Milan. The Kelly Wearstler H&M HOME collection arrives in stores and online, including Dubai Mall and hm.com/home for UAE, on 3 September 2026.
