Knoll x Dozie Kanu: The Collaboration That Brought Cowboy Culture and African Heritage to Milan Design Week

At Salone del Mobile 2026, American furniture icon Knoll unveiled a collection that nobody saw coming, and everyone is still talking about

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There are collaborations that make sense on paper, and then there are the ones that make you stop mid-stride at a design fair and actually look. The Dozie Kanu Collection for Knoll, unveiled at Salone del Mobile 2026, is firmly the latter. Leather skirts. Floor-length fringe. Steel rods. Bronze and dark manganese finishes. A console, a coffee table, a side table, each one animated by the slightest movement, each one carrying a story that spans three continents.

Portugal became the first country to present the collection, after its launch in Milan, with a special evening at QuartoSala, in Lisbon, with Dozie Kanu himself. 

Meet Dozie Kanu

Born in Houston to Nigerian immigrant parents, Dozie Kanu is a New York-trained artist and designer whose practice sits at the intersection of sculpture, installation, and object-making. 

Working with found materials, industrial fragments, and traces of prior use, he creates pieces that are as much about cultural memory as they are about form. He has exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem, Fondation Beyeler, and ICA Milano.

He now lives and works in Santarém, Portugal, where he has transformed a 500m² warehouse into both his home and atelier.

Knoll: The House Behind the Collection

Founded in 1938, Knoll has spent nearly a century at the intersection of art, architecture, and furniture design — commissioning work from some of the most significant designers of the 20th century, from Mies van der Rohe to Eero Saarinen. 

Under the current creative direction of Jonathan Olivares, the brand continues that tradition with intention, looking beyond the conventional furniture world for collaborators who bring genuinely new thinking to the brief. The Kanu collaboration is a precise expression of that direction.

The Collection

The Dozie Kanu Table Collection comprises three pieces — a console, a coffee table, and a side table — each wrapped in leather skirts with floor-length tassels in either bronze or dark manganese. Steel rod structures sit beneath, their hard geometry contrasting deliberately against the softness and movement of the leather above. The fringe shifts at the slightest touch, revealing storage space underneath and giving each piece a quality that is less static object, more living presence.

The references are layered and deeply personal. The leather top draws from an African drum Kanu collected. The fringe speaks simultaneously to African ceremonial dress and the cowboy culture of his Texas upbringing. Portugal, where he is now based, informs the work too. Three geographies, one object.

In Conversation with Dozie Kanu

We sat down with Dozie Kanu for a quick rapid-fire interview about the collection. Here’s what we found out. 

Three words to describe this collection.

Evocative. Thruthful. Sexy.

Watch the full interview with Dozie here.

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If you enjoyed this article, you should check our H&M and Longchamp Milan Design Week Collaborations, and more Design articles