Two First Times: Piegatto's Debut, Seen Through Dennise and Carmen

This year, Piegatto went to Salone del Mobile for the first time. So did Carmen and Dennise.

Carmen had spent ten years in furniture before this trip, watching Milan Design Week from a distance, launches and installations on a screen, a fair she'd studied without ever standing inside it. Dennise was newer to the company altogether, and to her, Salone was something she'd only heard about, a dream the team talked about long before it became a plan with dates and flights. Different starting points, the same first time, walking into it together as the two Guatemalans representing Piegatto on its debut.

Landing in it

Neither of them expected the size of it. Carmen remembers the first day as a mix of excitement and nerves, the number of people, the number of brands, the sheer scale of the spaces, and underneath it, the weight of representing Piegatto somewhere this important for the first time. Dennise felt something similar walking in: the stands already built, the energy in the air, everything suddenly real after months of hearing about it secondhand. "It was motivating," she said, "just to see so many people passionate about design gathered in one place."

What stayed with them

Between running the Piegatto stand, there wasn't much time to wander, but a few spaces still stopped them completely. For Carmen, it was Edra and Kartell, less like booths, more like full art exhibitions, where light, material, and composition turned furniture into something immersive. For Dennise, it was Versoni's playful, sculptural stuffed furniture, and Ichendorf, a small, quiet space inside a fair built on scale, where every piece still managed to hold her attention. "That says a lot," she said, "about the power of design that's really thought through."

It's not a coincidence that this is also, in many ways, Piegatto's own belief: that a piece doesn't need to be the loudest thing in the room to be the one people remember.

What Milan taught them

Both came away with the same realization from different angles. Carmen was struck by how naturally design connects people, cultures, and industries, how the whole city seemed to run on that same current during Design Week. Dennise was surprised by how emotional design can be. "You think about furniture, materials, trends," she said, "but being there, you understand it's also about creating feelings and connections." Every brand at Salone had a concept behind what it showed, not just a product.

That's the same instinct behind Piegatto's own work, whether it's Sandra shaping the Lena table around a memory of her mother, or Alejandro describing Carved Landscapes as something uncovered rather than designed. Standing inside Salone, surrounded by brands built on that same idea, made it clear the two weren't so far apart after all.

Coming home

For Carmen, the trip didn't change how she sees Piegatto's place in design, that was never in question. What it changed was the pride, watching Piegatto stand inside that global landscape, next to brands she'd studied from afar for years. For Dennise, it was similar: representing the brand on a stage that size, and watching people connect with what Piegatto makes, confirmed something she'd only sensed from behind a desk in Guatemala. "Piegatto has a very strong, very specific identity," she said, "within international design."

Two first times, one debut. Piegatto's story has always been about a family building something by hand, from Guatemala, for the world to see. This year, for the first time, the world saw it in Milan, and two of the people who helped carry it there came home changed too.