Benvenuto a Salone Del Mobile! This week, Milan played host to its annual furniture fair, Milan Design Week—but really, it’s more than just that. It’s a celebration of diaphanous, boundaryless concepts of design, taste, and style from all over the world. And with each new year, the fashion world makes itself more known. People who gather to toast the debut of a brand’s new drinks cabinet or teapot collection, and who can find endless ways to innovative lamps, have very different entry points into how best to dress. Street style, then, is as eclectic as you would expect.
Schedules were jam-packed, with guests traversing the stalls of the vast Milan Design Week fair as well as its off-shoots in studios, palazzos, store boutiques, and private apartments all over the city. As the sun set on a balmier-as-the-week-continued Milano, aperitivo was shared—grab the Champagne and conceptual hor d’oeuvres tray quickly!—and groups filed into local trattorias to debrief over ossobuco and tiramisu. Later, those still standing would rave to Björk in the park with Vans, or hit Stone Island Sound’s impressive audio installation at Capsule Plaza. From the day’s first studio appointment to a nightcap negroni at Bar Basso, Design Week attendees had to dress smartly.
“I came across this meme that said Design Week is that one time of year reserved for people who dress exclusively in black, always have an obscure book peeking out of their coat pocket, and wear sunglasses 24/7. Honestly, I get it,” says Francesca Faccani, Vogue Italia’s news and lifestyle editor. “Milanese style is a constant negotiation between your emotions and the perpetually gray sky. During Design Week, forget the sunny florals of fashion week or the pastel elegance of those Instagram accounts devoted to scuire—the effortlessly chic Milanese ladies of a certain age—because Design Week belongs to the aesthetes, the intellectuals, and the underdogs of style. Tucked away like the best installations hidden in private courtyards and maisons, this is their moment to step into the light.”
While fashion weeks across the world consider their purpose, and opportunities for new fashion design talent continue to decline, it is in more creatively open spaces like Milan Design Week that perspectives on style and expression feel most interesting. “We chose Design Week to break [away from] what we are seeing is more of a transactional fashion week,” says Reece Crisp, the buying and creative director at luxury independent concept store LN-CC, which is London-based with an office in Milan. The store held an intimate dinner with Milanese interiors, design, and furniture company NM3 in the new Galleria Montegani space during Design Week. “Design feels more about creating—it’s not bound to a seasonal calendar, but more a timeline that gives you a year to culminate and curate. Fashion week has a place, but more and more we see the commercials becoming more important across all facets of the business, not just the product. Design Week gives brands the space to be who they want to be.”
Boots on the ground, with such a vast array of aesthetics in the city, street style was various. Around Capsule Plaza at Spazio Maiocchi, the more new-gen, experimental, fair–exhibition space, attendees wore body-enveloping streetwear, archival Yohji Yamamoto, and every variation of Margiela Tabis. Through the multiple opening aperitivi, from the boutiques and stores of Issey Miyake, Versace, Hermes, Loewe, and Diesel, people rubbed their Pleats Please-d shoulders and toted bulbous mini Miu Miu bags. At Danish silversmith Georg Jensen’s delightful Gelateria Danese concept, variations of vintage Gucci and Fendi bags sat beside silver ice-cream coupes. Queuing for Italy Segreta’s affogato collaboration with historic pasticceria Marchesi, women wore Marianne Faithfull-style wraparound sunglasses and ’60s-esque cateyes. In other parts of the city, low slung denim and cargos abounded.
“The general style of people in Milan right now veers between Y2K and gorpcore,” offers Elisa Carassai, the Milan born-and-based editor of Sali e Tabacchi Journal. “I love to hike and to ski, but I’m not the kind of girl who wears Gore-Tex. I love pairing satins with vintage prints and clashing them. I’m a big power suit girl. I’ve always worn vintage clothes and I’m a fan of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, as well as Alessandro Michele’s work at Gucci and Valentino. I like to wear feminine styles with masculine shoes, especially when I’m running around Milan during Design Week, mixing vintage with contemporary.”
Elsewhere, you could spot more threads of trends: jeans tucked into boots, skirts over trousers, mixed prints, exaggerated proportions, and subversive takes on suiting. But overall, it’s the city’s collective easygoing energy amid a chaotic schedule, a commitment to cheersing at every aperitivo and being as engaged as could be at each new homeware launch, that felt the most stylish and chic.
Below, see some of the best street style moments from this year’s Salone Del Mobile.
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
Photographed by Glauco Canalis
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