Mexico City Art Week, held every February, is also an opportunity to discover design. The primary art fair, Zona Maco, has hosted a design-focused section for 15 years; the nomadic, contemporary design-focused Unique Design X fair has been staged in the city since 2024; and around the leafy, bustling neighbourhoods of Mexico’s capital, collectible design galleries and young makers open their doors for special showcases.
A huge array of international design talent was present at this year’s Art Week (4-8 February) – from Lee Broom and Sabine Marcelis to Fernando Laposse and Panorammma – but we wanted to shine a spotlight on the exciting emerging designers from Mexico to keep an eye on. Here’s who to know.
Five emerging Mexican designers
Alan Aguilar Canela
(Image credit: Courtesy Alan Aguilar Canela)
Based in the city of Puebla, 27-year-old Alan Aguilar Canela creates furniture to shape ‘emotionally engaging’ spaces. ‘I’m interested in how objects can evoke feelings and subtly influence the atmosphere of the places where people live,’ says Canela. ‘Emotional design is central to my practice, and I aim to translate that sensitivity into functional pieces.’
His debut furniture collection, ‘A Deeper Void’, drew influence from Bauhaus geometry, reinterpreted through a contemporary Mexican lens. This resulted in tables comprising laminated glass circles, triangles and rectangles slotted together in vibrant blue, yellow and red hues.
(Image credit: Alan Aguilar Canela)
His new collection, ‘Ikigai’ – which was presented at Zona Maco’s emerging design section this year – turns to crisp, industrial aluminium. Two bookshelves on wheels bring together straight and curved planes of the raw material, inspired by minimalist Japanese design.
Canela studied both industrial design and product design, and alongside his furniture work, he creates jewellery that allows him to realise ideas at a different scale. While he has exhibited at Zona Maco and Design Week Mexico, he hopes to present his work at design fairs outside of the country, expanding his practice globally.
Studio Lares
(Image credit: Courtesy Studio Lares)
Established in Mexico City in 2024, Studio Lares is the vision of Mexican designer Natalia Laresgoiti, who developed her own collection of furniture and lighting after working in a prestigious interior design studio in New York.
‘Over time, I felt a strong pull to move from working within other people’s visions to designing pieces of my own,’ she says. ‘The studio emerged as a way to translate that experience into a more personal, focused practice – one centred on creating furniture that feels deliberate, enduring, and thoughtfully made.
‘Mexico felt like the natural place to establish the studio – not only personally, but creatively,’ she adds. ‘There is a deep culture of craftsmanship here, and I wanted to build something rooted in that tradition while maintaining a global perspective shaped by my years in New York.’
(Image credit: Courtesy Studio Lares)
(Image credit: Courtesy Studio Lares)
The studio’s first collection was launched in 2025 and features a deep-red ceramic-tiled bench, a walnut table integrated with an upholstered seat, a steel mirror with molten glass decoration, a walnut credenza, and an elegantly playful lamp. All were on show at Unique Design X Mexico City 2026, in a booth curated by Gaïa Matisse (a descendant of iconic French painter Henri Matisse).
As Laresgoiti explains, Studio Lares is rooted in ‘longevity’: ‘At a time when design has become increasingly trend-driven, I wanted to create pieces that resist that cycle – objects that feel relevant beyond a specific moment.’
Studio Multiply
(Image credit: Pamela Limon and Lourdes Chumacero)
Established by architects Ricardo Enriquez and Ricardo Valdés in 2024, Studio Multiply creates lighting and furniture that blend traditional techniques and crafts with industrial and contemporary processes. The duo are based in Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl, to the east of Mexico City, and showcased their ‘Luneta’ lamp this year at Zona Maco’s emerging design section.
‘Luneta’, a circular wall-mounted design resembling a glowing planet, uses a goldsmithing technique called ‘rechazado’, typically employed in antique brass candelabras, but is mounted on a 3D-printed frame.
(Image credit: Pamela Limon and Lourdes Chumacero)
Two table designs – ‘Vaaca’ and ‘Recinto’ – combine natural materials such as bovine leather and carved volcanic stone with rigid, minimalist stainless steel frames. The ‘Silla del Mandado’ armchair is a burst of colour and pattern, harnessing plastic raffia that is more commonly used for Mexican shopping bags – complete with plastic loop detailing recalling handles.
(Image credit: Pamela Limon and Lourdes Chumacero)
The columnar, touch-activated ‘Vitralita’ table lamp, meanwhile, uses leaded glass resembling historic stained-glass windows, set on an anodised aluminium base.
Following Zona Maco, Studio Multiply is looking ahead to exciting international plans, showing at Maison&Objet in Paris later in 2026, and at Salone Satellite in Milan next year.
Umaguma
(Image credit: Alejandro Ramirez Orozco)
Under the name Umaguma, Mexican-American designer and textile artist Yasmin Mora makes colourful, almost psychedelic rugs in organic shapes that command attention in any interior. She works with naturally dyed wool from the state of Oaxaca, crafting diverse textile works that aim to possess a sense of rhythm, cultural heritage and identity.
Having lived in both Mexico and the US, Mora believes Umaguma expresses the ‘duality of the cross-cultural experience – a Chicana identity woven between two worlds, two countries and two histories’. As she conceives her designs, she holds in her mind personal memories and collective experiences; as she describes it, ‘the colours and textures of pain, resilience, and liberation’.
(Image credit: Alejandro Ramirez Orozco)
With dynamic, curvy silhouettes resembling coral or spilled liquid, Umaguma’s rugs feature bright, swirling hues that entrance the viewer. During Mexico City Art Week, two such works were on show at ‘Forms in Suspension’, an exhibition at the collectible design gallery Toro Manifesto, which represents Mora and is a vital hub of emerging design in the Mexican capital.
Métamo Studio
(Image credit: Courtesy Metamo Studio)
Founded by Manuel Eduardo Peón Ceballos and Yadir Iván Chan Martín, two designers and friends from Mérida, Yucatán, Métamo Studio makes simple yet bold furniture in organic shapes. The duo established the studio in 2024 after running a woodworking shop together, and create furniture that ‘goes beyond functionality – these are pieces that engage in dialogue with space, that are meant to be felt and lived’, says Ceballos.
(Image credit: Courtesy Metamo Studio)
The characteristic curved and wiggling lines of their furniture reference the natural landscapes of Yucatán – such as the Costa Esmeralda, Pink Lagoon, and cenotes (natural sinkholes) – as well as elements of historic Mayan architecture and culture.
Métamo works with native hardwoods such as rosa morada and encino oak, letting the crafted pieces speak for themselves without additional decoration or detailing. The studio’s ‘Venus’ and ‘Marte’ chairs were displayed at the dedicated emerging design section of Zona Maco this year, but Métamo seems destined to rise into the spotlight.
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