milan design...day.

the time has come.

after our field trip to anzio, to walk through sicily-rome american cemetery and memorial. the bus driver took the interior design girls to the airport for the world's shortest trip to a design show. design week in milan spans over the course of a few days, and we had the opportunity to visit on opening day - april 13th. we arrived late tuesday night and all eight of us had a one track mind - FOOD. a reliable source had told me that the milanese are all about asian invasion, meaning that they are fans of asian food. after we checked into our four star hotel (that was supposed to ranked a negative four, they just forgot to put the "-" symbol in front of the 4 stars...but that is a completely new story) we headed down the street to the sushi bar that they recommended. after a meal with infinite let downs and staring at the un-edible 'chicken' teriyaki - chicken is used loosely in this description because i am 99.9% sure what they served was NOT chicken - we walked back to the hotel.

the morning arrived too quickly and we met our tour guide, max (he is the friend of our program coordinator in ariccia and teaches modern design history classes at a local university), for a day full of 'stimulation overload.'

the overall theme of the exposition was to promote full-circle green design (or at least that is what i got out of it), which i LOVED. GO ORGANIC (like the sticker on the back of my car)! many of the pieces of furniture and showcased works of art were obviously made out of reused materials. like this amazing piece of art...compact disks and random knick-knacks that were all painted black and then placed on top of the layer of CD's to create a face. genius.

it was love at first sight.

after last semester's introduction to kitchen and bath design, the aspect of residential design that i mocked the most ended up being my favorite (i truly hate to admit it). kitchen aid and a few other popular kitchen brands came together to form "heather's dream kitchen," minus the green accent. it was modern and clean and could almost make a visitor wonder if you were even in a kitchen. i am big fan of deceptive design...it makes you think.

IN LOVE!

one aspect of milan's design week that was DRASTICALLY different from neocon was that the showrooms and exhibits are not centrally located. neocon is hosted by the windy city of chicago and located within the merchandise mart. milan's show is allllllll over the city. which i wasn't complaining until the end of the day - when i was beyond exhausted. when we were walking to the next showroom we found and OUTDOOR showroom.

patio in the outdoor showroom. thank goodness it was such a beautiful day.

when we made it to our next scheduled destination we found environment furniture. a manufacturer that we were too familiar with after our LEED home project (shout out to 727 flood street, NOLA baby). after only seeing their products through an internet database, it was cool to see the designs in person.

the couch i used in my 'flood street' project

found these along the street of showrooms. love the way they are displayed.

the next stop on the wild and crazy day of stimulation overload was the temporary museum for new design. this had a TON of cool exhibitions and I wanted to post them all but i decided to post the favorites.

molo is one of my faves, faves, faves. the fact that they create with thin little stripes of paper boggles the mind. can you believe that these floating cloud-like light fixtures are made out of paper?! they also make a seat that can withstand a human to sit OR stand on it. once again this is made out of paper.

molo - lighting fixtures that i am beyond obsessed with

everything was made out of cardboard. make think about the spring 'chair project'

some bad ass lights i saw somewhere.

lil coco likes this.

max took us to observe the design of the store (reminded me of a nicer TAD - store in rome), but we were too preoccupied with the beautiful things. this one stop shopping for designers in milan - manolos, feragammo, and louboutin shoes. and even some other brands of beautiful clothing. i found this super cute leather crossbody bag that was shaped like a rhino - and was soooooo cute. if it had been a cat it would have been a done deal for an immediate purchase.

go here if you are in milan!

one of our last showrooms stops was established and sons, a british furniture manufacturer. at this point i only wanted to sit - we had been walking FOREVER and my feet were past the point of being tired, so i just enjoyed the exhibited merchandise from afar until one piece interested me.

this crazy storage piece.

you could pull all the drawers out from two different ways. CRAZZZZZY. it comes in a bunch of different colors too. i really want one. before we left for the party we stopped by one more exhibition.

these bowls were made out of a gel like resin, and had dried grasses in them.

these pieces had mirror on the outside of the upholstered furniture.

these are vegetables made out of fabric! but they look real...

finally it was the evening and time to go see max's friend. his friend was having some exhibition in an art gallery. all i was concerend about was the fact that we could get snacks.

the gang. nortold, LB, MAX, becca, krystle, lil coco, cydney, mikus, and mshap

to the airport! which was kind of stressful trying to get there. we accumulated so much free crap at all the showrooms/exhibits so we could barely fit it in out miniature bags that we brought as our carry ons. i wore 3 shirts and my jeans and a sweatshirt, and i was going to try to pull the biggest faux pas - bring TWO carry-ons. ryanair (the worst budget airline in europe...and probably the world) has a strict policy that if you do not pay to check a bag you can only bring one tiny bag on the plane. my carry on was already too full, so i planned on chancing it and bringing them both on. i managed to get them to both past security - whoop whoop! right by our gate we had a lindtt chocolate store and being girls we all decided to buy some chocolate.

the left over easter bunnies getting ready on the flight.

ready for take off!