Lounge chairs | Courtesy of Kartell
wednesday, april 16
Lounge
Salon Internazionale del Mobile
Milan, Italy
One of the world's most important design launching pads, the six-day Milan furniture fair gets bigger every year. (A record 270,000 attendees turned up for the 2007 edition.) So do the new ideas and designs on display there. This year, watch for a widening of -- and plenty of buzz about -- the chasm between designers following the function-focused "supernormal" school championed by Britain's Jasper Morrison and Japan's Naoto Fukasawa, and those who adhere to the over-the-top, bigger-is-better "maximalist" philosophy advocated by the Netherlands' Marcel Wanders and Studio Job. If you're more interested in sales than in chatter, look to companies that deal in the sensible middle ground, such as Poltrona Frau, Cassina, and Kartell (which will debut its "Hi Cut" chairs, above right, designed by Philippe Starck with Eugeni Quitllet). They'll be the ones busiest rack-ing up orders. -- Tim McKeough
thursday, april 17
Spend
Millionaire Fair
Kortrijk, Belgium
Unsure what to buy the tycoon or heiress in your life? Head to the medieval Flemish city of Kortrijk, an hour's drive from Brussels, and check out this annual supermarket for the superrich. The Bugatti Veyron -- which averages a stunning 8 miles per gallon in the city -- goes for $2 million. A slightly more modest option: a manservant trained by the Netherlands' elite International Butler Academy, whose salary runs between $50,000 and $150,000 a year, depending on the level of your personal Jeeves's experience. The fair's first evening is a VIP gala open only to wealthy invitees, but less-loaded folk can get a glimpse of how the other one-half of 1% live (and shop) between noon and 9 p.m. on each of the next three days. -- TB
wednesday, april 23
Go to the Movies
Tribeca Film Festival
New York
It's a gloomy irony: The Tribeca Film Festival, which runs through May 4, generates big bucks for businesses in Lower Manhattan -- that's what it was set up to do, after all -- but the fest itself is stuck in the red. This year is belt-tightening time for the TFF, which loses $1 million annually. It's scaling back its program, centralizing events at two "hubs," and reducing tickets for evening and weekend screenings to $15. One buzzed-about film this year is Lou Reed's Berlin, which documents a five-night orchestral performance by His Raspiness of one of the darkest albums ever made. Reed recorded Berlin in 1973, but it was such a commercial failure that he didn't perform it live until 2006. You know the moral of the story: When it comes to art, success is rarely measured by profit. For the festival, though, breaking even couldn't hurt. -- EG
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