Knoll x Dozie Kanu tables

Knoll is using Salone del Mobile 2026 to launch Dozie Kanu’s first collection for the brand: three leather-fringed metal tables. (wallpaper.com) Wallpaper reported the line includes a console, a coffee table and a side table, all wrapped with tasselled leather details over metal structures. The magazine said the forms draw on an African drum, African ceremonial dress and the fringed jackets associated with Texas cowboy culture. (wallpaper.com) Kanu was born in Houston in 1993, studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and now lives and works in Portugal, according to his studio biography. His practice spans sculpture, furniture and installation, with recent solo shows in Milan, Lisbon and Cologne. (doziekanu.com) The collaboration lands as Knoll keeps pushing beyond its canon of office and modernist classics into more sculptural work for the home and collectible-design audience. Knoll’s Salone presentation says the brand is showing “new furniture typologies” and “bold material expressions” in Milan this year. (salonemilano.it) That shift has been building. Knoll said during its 2025 Salone program that it was partnering with “today’s leading voices of design” on unconventional forms, part of a broader strategy inside MillerKnoll’s multi-brand portfolio. (knoll.com, millerknoll.com) Kanu framed the project as a question of authorship and legacy in a Hypebeast interview published ahead of the Milan launch. Hypebeast said the collaboration places his work inside “design’s legacy structures,” a notable step for an artist-designer better known for gallery and experimental contexts than mass-market furniture retail. (hypebeast.com) Salone del Mobile remains the industry’s biggest annual stage for launches like this, with the 2026 fair anchoring a wider Milan Design Week program across the city. The fair’s organizers said this year’s events extend from the exhibition grounds into squares, archives and cultural institutions across Milan. (salonemilano.it) For Knoll, the pitch is a heritage brand borrowing Kanu’s language of welded metal, found forms and cultural reference. For Kanu, the test comes in Milan, where a console, coffee table and side table have to read as both sculpture and furniture. (wallpaper.com, doziekanu.com)