Milan design week draws global creatives and makers despite war and economic worries

MILAN (AP) — Artist Maurizio Cattelan, the provocateur behind such works as a golden toilet titled “America," opened MilanDesignWeek by inviting people for an informal exchange of favorite objects in front of Milan’s Duomo cathedral, where he stamped “White Trash” on participants' necks and hands.

The mood in Milan was buoyant as guests moved from cocktail to cocktail in some of Milan’s most inviting venues on Monday before the doors of the Milan Furniture Fair opened Tuesday for the business of showing innovations in the most eclectic and energetic clash of events on the global design calendar.

Despite economic gloom and travel interruptions provoked by Mideast wars, 1,900 exhibitors from 32 countries showed their designs at the Fiera Milano Rho, while hundreds more events spilled out across the city for the ever-popular Fuorisalone.

“This week of design is so deep — an experience for all of us. I think we are a big community around the world, and I think at the end, we are a little bit all dreamers,″ said Spanish architect and designer Patricia Urquiola, one of Europe’s most celebrated luxury interior and furniture designers.

One of Urquiola’s collaborations included an installation inside a Milan luxury hotel for German porcelain fixture company Duravit, featuring totems created from toilets and bidets.

The furniture fair added a new pavilion this year called “Raritas” for designers of limited edition pieces to complement the industrial production long given center stage.

“We wanted to have antiques, high handcraft and, of course, contemporary collectibles with limited edition and unique pieces, so to have the entire wide range of design at the Salone,” curator Annalisa Rosso said.

Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis presented a bubbling sculpture with air passing through a viscose liquid inside a standing polymer wall. Italian designer Francesco Faccin showed deceptively simple tables and chairs that appeared to be made out of planks of wood, inspired partly by the Shakers, but were actually bronze casts.

Saudi brand Zaza made its debut at Salone, demonstrating that the Gulf nation is not just a consumer of foreign-made products but also a creative resource. The brand showcased curved sculptures out of tinted stainless steel and a limited edition chair worthy of a sheikh.

“We are here to bring the Saudi story to the world,’’ designer and architect Abdulaziz Khalid Al Tayyash said. “We want to expand and tell a good story about how, from Saudi lifestyle and Saudi culture, we can bring something interesting to be in such a platform, like this one.”

Home design has become an important plank for many luxury fashion houses including Armani and Dolce & Gabbana. But even for those who haven’t entered the sector, design week is a mandatory appointment, with bubbly flowing.

Gucci invited guests to a tranquil garden planted with wildflowers inside a monastery. The courtyard walls were hung with tapestries telling the fashion house’s history, from Guccio Gucci’s start as a bellhop in London that inspired him to begin making leather travel bags in his native Florence, and tracing the maison's creative course under designers Tom Ford, Frida Giannini, Alessandro Michele, Sabato Sarno and now Demna.

Louis Vuitton unveiled its latest housewares and furniture collection in a stately palazzo, showing off archival pieces including trunks for itinerant painters that segued into contemporary table settings, a wooden turntable stand shaped like a drill bit and a fantastical foosball table featuring mermaid players and eyeball handles.

In the courtyard of the historic Palazzo Litta, in the heart of the city, Paris-based Lebanese Lina Ghotmeh created a bright pink, wooden labyrinth meant to induce visitors to slow down, browse design books, take a seat and chat.

“As people move in this installation, you have this feeling of choreography and dance that is manifested, and you sit here and you’re just about watching people talk to each other. They become part of the setting and part of the theatricality of this place as well,’’ she said.

Piazza Gae Aulenti, among some of Milan’s most spectacular skyscrapers, Andrea Olivari created sculptures of the heart, stomach and brain with the subtitles: “Follow your heart, use your brain, trust your stomach.’’

Italian design and furniture generates 2.3% of GDP and represents more than 4% of the national manufacturing footprint, making Italy a center for innovation.

The collision of design week with the furniture fair has become a premier global destination and critical platform for the many small and medium-size companies to reach buyers and markets, said Claudio Feltrin, president of FederlegnoArredo, the Italian association for Italian furniture making.

Underlining the sector's strategic importance, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni opened the furniture fair, accompanied by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.

Italy’s furniture and design sector weathered the U.S. tariffs better than expected, posting 1.4% growth last year to revenues of 52 billion euros ($60.8 billion), 36% generated through exports. But uncertainty due to wars in the Middle East, which are pushing up energy prices and hampering transport, is dampening forecasts for this year.

Global exports were down 9% to nearly 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in the first two months of the year, including a 20% drop to the United States. If the conflict ends soon, Feltrin said the sector could recover as it did from last year's tariffs.

An architect of Zaza Maizon brand stands next to interior furniture creations displayed at the Salone Raritas, collectible design pavilion, during the Milan Design Week, in Rho, Italy, Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Designer Lina Ghotmeh walks through her installation 'Metamorphosis in motion' at Palazzo Litta, during the Design Week in Milan, Italy, Monday, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Designer Sabine Marcelis poses behind her creation 'Plume' a liquid sculpture displayed at the Salone Raritas, collectible design pavilion, during the Milan Design Week, in Rho, Italy, Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Business operators and visitors enter the grounds of the Milan Design Week fair in Rho, Italy, Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Artist Maurizio Cattelan participates in the objects changing event 'Barter breakfast' in front of the Duomo gothic cathedral, in Milan, Italy, Monday, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

NEW YORK (AP) — A surge for Intel following a blowout profit report is leading technology stocks higher Friday, while oil prices keep swinging in the wait for what’s next with the Iran war.

The S&P 500 added 0.5% and rose above its all-time high set on Wednesday, even though the majority of stocks within the index fell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 197 points, or 0.4%, as of 11:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.1% higher.

Intel led the way and is potentially heading for its best day since 1987. It jumped 23.9% after reporting much stronger results for the first three months of the year than analysts expected. CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the next wave of artificial-intelligence technology is increasing the need for Intel’s chips and products, and the company’s forecast for profit in the spring topped analysts’ estimates.

Such strong profit reports have helped Wall Street rally to records, and the S&P 500 has leaped more than 12% in a little under a month. Hopes have also built in financial markets that the United States and Iran can find a way to avoid a worst-case scenario for the global economy because of their war.

A ceasefire is tenuously in place between the two, but tensions between them are still keeping oil tankers from passing through the Strait of Hormuz to deliver crude from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide.

Oil prices climbed this week on worries about the strait, but a potentially encouraging signal came Friday after Iran’s top diplomat said he was heading to Pakistan. That's where officials have been trying to get the United States and Iran to convene for a second round of ceasefire negotiations.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude to be delivered in June yo-yoed between roughly $103 and $107 in the morning and most recently was up 0.6% at $105.71. The price for a barrel of Brent oil delivered in July, which is where more of the trading is happening in the market, added 0.2% to $99.59.

On Wall Street, Procter & Gamble rose 3.9% after reporting stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Shailesh Jejurikar said it saw broad-based growth across regions and products, which include Bounty paper towels and Tide detergent.

That helped offset a drop of 23.7% for Charter Communications, whose profit for the latest quarter came in weaker than analysts expected. It lost 120,000 internet customers during the three months, more than some analysts expected.

Hartford Insurance Group fell 1.6% after reporting profit growth for the latest quarter that fell short of analysts’ expectations.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased after a report said sentiment among U.S. consumers remains sour. A survey by the University of Michigan found weaker sentiment in April across political party, income, age, and education, though it improved a bit after the ceasefire in the war with Iran was announced earlier in the month.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped to 4.31% from 4.34% late Thursday.

Investors are also betting again on the possibility that the Federal Reserve could resume its cuts to interest rates later this year. The path appeared to clear Friday for President Donald Trump's nominee to chair the Fed, Kevin Warsh, after the U.S. Justice Department ended its probe into the Fed's current chair, Jerome Powell.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, has said he would oppose Warsh until the investigation was resolved, effectively blocking his confirmation. Warsh is the choice of Trump, who has been arguing loudly for lower interest rates.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1%, and France’s CAC 40 fell 0.7% for two of the world’s bigger moves.

AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.

Options trader Matthew Hefter, center, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, April 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Specialist John Parisi works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, April 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), right, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, April 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A board above the floor of the New York Stock Exchange displays the closing number for the Dow Jones industrial average, Thursday, April 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

A person stands in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Thursday, April 23, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A currency trader watches monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, April 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)