The Bouroullecs' Aim lamps for Flos

"All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream" -Edgar Allan Poe

The 50th Milan furniture fair was crawling with millionaires—but Justin McGuirk argues in the Guardian that designers are being exploited by these same millionaires in making work for free.

The trouble is that the royalty system was introduced in the 1950s, when Italy was still the furniture manufacturer to the world. In those days, the risks of a royalty-only payment were worth taking. With an entire country to modernise and a rising middle class, a piece of modern design could shift hundreds of thousands of units. But with the advent of cheap manufacturing in China and budget retailers such as Ikea, Italian furniture is now a luxury industry. Not only do they sell less, there's more competition. And yet no up-and-coming designer would dream of turning down an opportunity from a manufacturer, because there are hundreds of others waiting to take their place if they do.

This year journalists quizzed manufacturers about their payment structures, and posted whatever they could dig up on Twitter through #milanuncut, a feed that asks, "designers, journalists, manufacturers to engage in an honest discussion about the industry and answer questions such as: Do designers get a raw deal from brands? Are royalty deals unfair? Is the design world a slave to the media? Who makes all the real money? Are there better ways for designers to do business? Has design lost its idealism?"

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