16 years ago, Cristian Confalonieri, a design student back then, had a brilliant insight: while trying to plan what to see in the city during the design week, he realised that on the web there was more or less nothing. This is how the website Fuorisalone.it was born and had become the portal that gathers all the exhibitions and projects of Milan Design Week. He co-founded the company Studiolabo that deals with communication design and territorial marketing. Accepting an invite from Council Member Cristina Tajani, he coordinates the Interzone Focus Group where all the most important players of design take part, including Superstudio.

For the first time in 1991, design showrooms gather together under an official guide called Fuorisalone, by initiative of Gilda Bojardi. In 2000, districts of design were born, by impulse of Superstudio that opens its space to design, with the accomplished creation of Tortona District. Later on, the development of other districts such as Brera and Ventura Lambrate... What is the success of the Fuorisalone, an event that the world envies us and uselessly tries to imitate?
I think the success of Fuorisalone is strictly connected to the inability to define it. And therefore to reduplicate it. Is it an event or a fair? Is it BtoB or BtoC? And so on. It is a strictly Italian model, Milanese actually. The city dimension, a little metropolis as it is usually called, is a fundamental element for the event success. We can shortly go through it and all neighbourhoods (who became then areas, and then districts) feel involved...