Museum-level furniture, lighting, and objects, sold in the same week as the art
Design Miami is an American design company that runs two flagship collectible design fairs each year — in Miami, Florida, every December, and in Paris every October. The fairs combine selling exhibitions with speaker panels, gallery presentations, awards, and commissioned work, and each edition offers museum-level furniture, lighting, and design objects from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, sourced from carefully vetted galleries.
It was founded in 2005 by the entrepreneur, property developer, and collector Craig Robins. From 2000 he had been working to transform the then-abandoned Miami Design District into a centre for design, architecture, fashion, food, and art, and by 2005 the district’s renewal had produced the company and the fair. A Basel edition followed shortly afterwards.
The category sits between art and furniture and is frequently misunderstood. The objects are functional — chairs, lighting, tables, cabinets — but they are acquired, valued and catalogued in the way art is, on the basis of designer, period, edition, provenance, and condition. A twentieth-century chair by a significant designer in original condition is treated as a work, not as seating.
That explains the fair’s audience. Designers, gallerists, museum curators, critics, and collectors attend in roughly equal proportions, and the galleries are vetted rather than simply booked. The fair also carries immersive brand collaborations and commissions, which is where contemporary practice appears alongside the historical material. The twentieth anniversary Miami Beach edition ran from 2 to 7 December 2025 with more than eighty exhibitors.
Design Miami has expanded well past its original week. The inaugural Paris edition launched in 2023, Design Miami.LA followed in May 2024 as the first West Coast version, and in 2025 the company introduced an initiative called In Situ, a series of regional activations intended to support local design communities — the first in Aspen in July 2025, then Seoul that September.
The ownership changed in the same period. In October 2023 Basic.Space acquired Design Miami in an all-stock transaction, with the intention of combining a digital marketplace with the fair’s established network of galleries, designers, and luxury brands. Alongside the fairs the company operates an ecommerce platform for historic and contemporary design and publishes an editorial title. For a buyer, the practical consequence is that the fair is now the visible part of a year-round market rather than the only moment to transact.
Tell us what you are looking for and we will arrange the previews, the galleries, and the shipping
The December week in Miami is one arrangement, not two, and we handle it alongside Art Basel Miami Beach. Clients who follow the international calendar also take Art Basel in June and Frieze Masters in London in October. Corporate and client hosting during the week runs through our Business Concierge team.
There is a discipline to this that does not apply to pictures. Scale is the first problem: a piece that reads perfectly in a booth under fair lighting can be entirely wrong in a room, and the most common regret is dimensional rather than aesthetic. Taking measurements of the intended space before travelling is not fussy; it is the difference between a purchase and a mistake.
Condition is the second. Design objects were made to be used, and most have been. Original finish, original upholstery, replaced components, and later editions all affect value very differently from the way restoration affects a painting, and the answers are not always volunteered. Ask directly and ask early.
The third is logistics, and it is the one people underestimate. A chair bought on a Wednesday in Miami Beach has to be crated, insured, shipped, and installed, and that process is measured in weeks. We arrange it from the stand so that the decision and the delivery are handled as one thing.
In Miami each December, during the same week as the city’s art fair. A Paris edition runs each October
Collectible design — museum-level furniture, lighting and objects from the twentieth, and twenty-first centuries
No. It is a separate company and a separate fair that shares the week
In 2005, by Craig Robins, out of the regeneration of the Miami Design District
Paris since 2023 and Los Angeles since 2024, alongside regional activations introduced in 2025
Three to four months for the week. Shipping arrangements are best discussed before you buy, not after
Yes, the Miami fair runs in early December each year, aligned with the citywide art week calendar.
The fair takes place in the Miami Design District, a short distance from the Miami Beach convention halls used for art week each December.
Every piece on show is functional, limited-edition design meant for use, not paintings or sculpture for gallery walls.
It runs on the same December week as Art Basel Miami Beach and dozens of satellite fairs across the city.
The Paris edition is smaller and runs each October inside a historic building near the Champs-Elysees.
The week when the best design of the last century is available to sit in
