C.Next by Cosentino: Where Surfaces and Designers Meet

By Beverly Gene, Design Consultant, Claris Company. Event details in this story are drawn from Cosentino and the trade press, linked in the text; the Claris history is first-hand.

Published October 2026.

C.Next by Cosentino (also written CNEXT) is a pair of winter summits on the Mexican coast: one for designers, one for fabricators and installers. The Cosentino designers summit gathers a few hundred designers, editors and brand partners, four days, one resort. It is small on purpose, and that is why it matters.

What is C.Next?

C.Next is Cosentino's annual summit in Mexico for the North American design and stone trade. The designers edition brings interior designers, architects, editors and brand partners together for four days of panels, conversation and material launches. A second edition, for fabricators and installers, runs the same month.

C.Next Designers editions at a glance

Sources: Cosentino, 2024 · Business of Home, 2025 · Business of Home, 2026 · C.Next Designers 2027.

Who is C.Next for? Designers, and fabricators and installers

The older summit is for fabricators and installers, the people who cut and set the stone. It grew out of Cosentino's C100 programme and reaches its 28th year in January 2027.

The designers summit is newer. Its fifth edition, in January 2026, drew more than 300 designers, partners and media to Cancún. Designer Kerrie Kelly, who attended, lists NKBA as a presenting partner, with AD, House Beautiful, Interior Design, LUXE and Business of Home as media partners. Panels covered wellness, colour, partnership and craft, with designers including Ray Booth, Corey Damen Jenkins, Alexa Hampton and Amber Lewis on stage.

The two run back to back. The people who specify a surface and the people who install it are in Mexico the same fortnight.

Why a small summit shapes the industry

A trade fair is built for volume: thousands of visitors, a few minutes per booth. C.Next is built the other way. A few hundred people, four days, one resort. Designers sit with editors. Editors sit with the material house. Conversations get a second day.

That is where the work starts. A designer meets a maker. A material arrives with a problem it can solve. A year later, there is a product.

From C.Next to ALICE: the collaboration we know best

Claris met Benoît Gérard at C.Next in 2025. The brief that came out of that week: take mirror and architectural glass past their usual role, and make them into objects for the home.

The next year, Cosentino brought ĒCLOS to C.Next. The Gemini Collection had been missing one piece, a mirror that needs no wall. ĒCLOS gave it a base with the weight to hold a tall glass panel upright, and ALICE was born. The full account: How Alice Came to Stand on ĒCLOS.

Since then, ALICE has stood in Cosentino rooms in Toronto, at Living Luxe 2026, in Montréal at DADA, and this month in Cosentino's booth at High Point Market. One week in Mexico, a year of work after it.

Where C.Next is pointing design

Surfaces are leaving the countertop

For most of their history, quartz and sintered stone lived on kitchen counters and bathroom vanities. ĒCLOS, a surface whose pattern runs through its full body, is being shown as furniture, as objects, as the base of a mirror. In Milan this year, Cosentino showed it with Tom Dixon. At High Point this fall, ĒCLOS is part of Cosentino's lounge at Broad Hall.

The material and the maker design together

The old order was linear: a material launches, designers specify it later. At C.Next, the designer, the editor and the material house are in the same conversation from the start, and products come out shaped by all three.

The senses come first

The 2027 theme is "Beyond The Surface": design as something you feel as much as something you see. Touch, light, reflection, weight. A mirror is a sensory object first. That brief suits us.

C.Next 2027: dates, venue and theme

C.Next Designers 2027 runs January 8 to 11, 2027, at Grand Velas Riviera Maya, Mexico, under the theme "Beyond The Surface". The fabricators and installers summit follows, January 12 to 15, at the same resort.

How to attend C.Next

Both summits are by invitation from Cosentino. Invited designers register through the C.Next Designers site; fabricators and installers register through Cosentino's own C.Next site. If you work with Cosentino surfaces, your Cosentino representative is the first conversation.

Explore the Gemini Collection, the line that began at C.Next, or read more in The Design Journal.

Frequently asked questions

What is C.Next by Cosentino?

C.Next is Cosentino's pair of annual summits in Mexico: one for designers, in its sixth edition in 2027, and one for fabricators and installers, in its 28th year in 2027. They bring designers, editors, fabricators and Cosentino together for several days of panels and conversation.

When and where is C.Next 2027?

The designers summit runs January 8 to 11, 2027, at Grand Velas Riviera Maya, Mexico. The fabricators and installers summit follows, January 12 to 15, at the same resort.

What is the C.Next 2027 theme?

The theme is "Beyond The Surface": design as a fully sensory experience.

Who attends C.Next Designers?

Interior designers, architects, editors and brand partners, by invitation. Recent editions have drawn between 250 and more than 300 guests.

What is ĒCLOS?

A surface brand from Cosentino whose pattern runs through its full body. Claris uses it as the base of ALICE and ALICE MINI.

Claris Company. 50 Carroll Street, Toronto, Ontario, M4M 3G3. +1-855-999-2124. info@clariscompany.com.