Ok yes, I’m well aware that the Milan Design Week took place a few months ago and I actually started typing a Blogpost then, but sadly I stopped quite soon because once again I found it so challenging to put this amazing weekend, into german words, so here we go again. Oh and I went there with Hanni and as I said we had the best time ever.
The MDW in general took place from the 16th until the 22nd April 2018 and in the course of that also one of the most famous and precious furniture fares worldwide, the Salone del Mobile at the Fiera Milano. First of all I want to give you a little background information why I even was there and how we planned it.
The Salone del Mobile is only open to the general public on the weekend, so from Friday til Sunday and I’d definitely recommend to plan the trip in advance because Milan is crazy busy all week, and with planning I mean booking a hotel early enough because either way there are no rooms left or they are horrendously expensive and over priced. Oh and I have to add it only takes us around 4 hours by car to get to Milan so there was no need to book a flight.
Hotel:
I have to say I was a little naiv because I started scrolling through booking.com a month or so before and I was genuinely gutted when I filtered lowest to highest price the cheapest room that came up was 250€ for one night and 2 persons!!! Sooo, because I wasn’t really keen on paying that much money for a bad room I researched and found the IBIS Style Hotelgroup, because they have quite a few Hotels around the city I found a room for around 100€ 20 minutes away from the city centre, which was totally fine to us, because we spent the day in town or at the fare anyways, the only problem was that they were fully booked from Friday to Saturday and I couldn’t find anything comparable on such a short notice, so we decided to leave at 4am and to only stay 1 night.
The Hotel was called IBIS Style Est Settala, it was clean, the staff was nice and the breakfast included, so perfect for our stay. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of the room or the hotel because we got there at about 11pm and we were shuttered from running around at a hot day but here’s the Link: https://www.booking.com/hotel/it/ibis-styles-milano-est-settala.de.html?label=gen173nr-1DCAEoggJCAlhYSDNYBGgOiAEBmAEHuAEHyAEN2AED6AEBkgIBeagCAw;sid=0cd36d1426827769a090ae3ab58f3e85;dest_id=900040186;dest_type=city;dist=0;group_adults=2;hapos=1;hpos=1;room1=A%2CA;sb_price_type=total;srepoch=1530733970;srfid=144d091939f88f2ce1e24a9687e6cac08761c947X1;srpvid=ce378bc810750053;type=total;ucfs=1&#hotelTmpl
But back to the beginning now, in general the design week is divided into the fare itself, where all the big interior/design companies have a booth and the city centre, where the same and also other companies and creators rent special showrooms for the week. I recommend to download the ‚Milan Design Guide‘ by Architonic via http://www.architonic.com, it is free and really well made!
We started off with the fare and arrived at about 11am at the Fiera Milan, there are student tickets but they are still not a bargain but indeed a fair price: 25€ per Person.
The thing with the Salone is that many booths aren’t public, even though the fare is public i.e. Hérmes Home was private, you needed an invitation to get inside the booth, which was a little bit sad sometimes but it feels a bit like it should create a feeling of exclusivity, but because I do know someone in the industry we were lucky enough to get into the Baxter and the Minotti Booth and it was amazing, but even though we entered only two stands, I don’t feel like we’ve missed something, because if we’re honest the style and the trends are quite similar anyways, and into most booths you can have a sneak peek through windows.
After a couple of hours it got quite exhausting because it was a very warm day and also crowded, so after we’ve seen the most important halls, we skipped 2 because we heard from different people that those aren’t too special, but of course, everbodys preferences are different. Then we drove into town and got very lucky with a parking garage about 5-10 minutes away from the cathedral, it is called San Barnaba, we expected the worse, price wise but we only payed 11€ for about 6/7h, which for a city like Milan is really good.
I collected lots of recommendations from someone who’s been to the Milan Design Week before and knows all the cool places because we didn’t have much time. We more or less had a little tour, like a route we wanted to follow and it was actually perfect, I tried to illustrate it here:
We walked from the Garage to the Via Durini, where loads of big furniture stores are located i.e. B&B Italia and Cassina, further on to the Piazza San Babila, which feels like the centre of the shopping universe, shops like Louis Vuitton and H&M meet there. We walked up North because our orientation was just bad but turns out that it was a good idea because we discovered the Gubi Showroom, which was just phenomenal, take a look yourself, but unfortunately many people at quite a small space.
Also in the Corso Venezia the Martini Bar by Dolce & Gabbana and Veuve Cliquot, in a little backyard with a very cool vibe.
From the bar, we walked back down to the Piazza San Babila, and towards Brera, in this area, most of the luxury brands are based like Chanel, Gucci, Prada etc., it was crazy busy but let alone a stroll through the area is worth it because people in general seem to be dressed so much better and more tasteful, i might make this up in my mind but that’s at least the feeling I caught, make sure you also walk through the side roads!
We wanted to have dinner in the area and got ‚Il Salumaio di Montenapoleone‘ recommended, and also wanted to go there because JUST LOOK AT IT, it is such a pretty backyard (yes I like restaurants in backyards), but unfortunately and also obviously they were fully booked, we should’ve reserved a table… but that saves it for next time! 😉
Didn’t end up going for dinner anywhere else, because we were sooooo exhausted, we went for an Aperol, some snacks and fell into bed.
Sunday, Day 2:
Filled with new energy we had a surprisingly good breakfast at the hotel and drove into town again, continued our ‚tour‘ where we stopped the day before, so off to Brera, the Design District, which I’d say was my favourite part, because there are sooo many cool showrooms at so many different and creative locations, there is an overview plan, which brands are where in the district, and it definitely makes sense to look at it before because I honestly was a bit overwhelmed because I couldn’t decide where to go first (haha).
I don’t want to name brands and showrooms in particular because if obviously depends on what you like but we personally enjoyed the Boffi Showroom (it was located in a backyard, once again :-D) and Bulthaup, because of the location, it is at an old cathedral, didn’t take any pictures though because we were a little bit disappointed by the exhibition, but it’s still worth a visit.
We had lunch at Nazionale Pizzeria in Brera, and i can so recommend it, it was delicious and our table was right in the window, which was perfect, once again: Aperitivo!
On our way back to the car we had the Baxter Cinema and Bar planned, which is really cool, it looks exactly like a retro cinema but inside/downstairs it’s a ’normal‘ furniture store and next door is the legendary Baxter Bar!
Here we go, this was our weekend in Milan, we’d do it like this again, and I’m actually impressed how much we did in not even 2 days!
xx Theres
Now on to the most important part: Summer Drinks!
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