Business news: Molteni has become the latest Italian design brand to appoint a non-Italian creative director, signing up Belgian architect and designer Vincent Van Duysen for the role.
The move follows Cassina's appointment last year of Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola as its creative director, and Driade's hiring of British architect David Chipperfield in 2014.
Van Duysen, 53, will oversee the creative direction of furniture brand Molteni&C and Dada, Molteni's luxury kitchen brand.
Vincent Van Duysen, who has been named creative director of Molteni&C,  designed the brand's stand at Milan's Salone del Mobile
Giulia Molteni, the brand's head of marketing and communication, said the appointment would help the family-run company distinguish itself from other Italian brands. "I think Vincent will give us a more sophisticated look, a bit of northern European minimalism that Molteni needs," she told Dezeen.
Molteni admitted that Italian furniture brands have been difficult to tell apart, since they tend to work with the same roster of international designers.

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"It's true, it's definitely true [the Italian brands can be hard to tell apart]," she said. "There's a kind of Italian mood that's spread all around."
She added: "I think Vincent will work very much on interior decoration to give a real sense of home, because of his experience in architecture, a...