When someone offers you the chance to fly business class to Milan and stay in a five star hotel for the better part of a week, you absolutely say yes. Such was the case from April 12-16th, when I attended Milan Design Week in conjunction with Salone Del Mobile, arguably the world’s largest furniture fair. So, it's kind of like PItti Uomo, but for Versace sofas and Rick Owens leather hide trash cans, both of which are real things I actually saw.
COS, purveyor of middle-priced minimal menswear and womenswear, offered to foot the bill while they unveiled a collaborative installation with Daniel Arsham and Alex Mustonen of Snarkitecture, an all-white labyrinth consisting of over 100 kilometers of vertical textured fabric strips. Riffing off of the themes of lightness and the materials from COS' Spring/Summer 2015 collection, the installation was on display during Milan Design Week, with similar build-outs in the windows of their retail locations. Here's what went down when I took full advantage of a luxurious "working" vacation.
2.
Day 1
I had an idea of how baller the trip would be when the car that picked me up from my apartment on Sunday was a murdered-out SUV that looked like it could withstand an IED or two. Upon arriving at the airport, I checked in and happily discovered I was flying business class. I have never been upgraded nor flown anything other than coach my entire life, so, as you can imagine, this was a big deal. Then, I found out that I could hang in the Emirates Lounge while waiting for my flight. At that point, my life began to emulate the Seinfeld episode where Jerry can't go back to coach. I have seen the top of the mountain. I know what's up there now. And it's veal scaloppini, free bottles of Stella and potatoes au gratin.
The flight was a redeye, leaving at 10pm, arriving at noon Milan time. Normally, that would be an issue, but in this instance my seat turned into a fucking bed. With a simple push of a button, I was granted more legroom than God, the cushion on my back and footrest extending to a full 180 degrees prone. Under no circumstances do I deserve this kind of posh treatment. I passed out, was woken up for dinner, vaguely remember ordering a steak and a glass of Chivas Regal 18 year on the rocks, scarfing both down, then going back to sleep. It was absolutely surreal.
As with every press trip, you meet different editors and form a week-long bond with a select few because it’s lonely as fuck in these foreign streets. After arriving to the Carlton Hotel Baglioni, a five star hotel in the Centro Storico District, I sat down and had doppios with Chris Wallace, senior editor at Interview and former Park & Bond editor, and Alix Browne of W magazine. We talked for a bit about the city, Browne being the most familiar, and then separated once our rooms were ready. I took the most gratifying shower of my life and got some work done in my room before meeting up with Chris to explore the city.
We started with a walking tour of the Brera Design District, copping gelato and eventually ended up near the Nike Lab Milan store on Lanza. Kids were lining up outside for the Kobe X HTMs and Dover Street Market Jordan 1s, which were set to drop the next day. The store itself was closed however. We ended up walking to 10 Corso Como, where we drank mad Negronis and ate some small bites and tried to pass it off as dinner. I resigned myself back to the hotel to get more work done and Facetime into some meetings like an asshole.
4.
Day 2, Morning
My door buzzer woke me up at 7:15am. I tried my best to pass out at a decent time the night before, but jet lag had gotten the best of me and I ended up awake for the better part of four hours. In addition to leaving chocolates by your bedside, the Carlton Hotel also has a form where you can request a wake-up call, breakfast and morning paper. In what was probably a fatigue-induced fugue state, I filled it out and left it on the door, which explains why I started my morning with a plate of eggs and bacon, a double espresso and a copy of the International New York Times.
There was no use trying to get a nap in, so by 8:30 I was showered and decided to take a walk around the city. Baudelaire had a soft spot for the flaneur and so do I. Idle time is a luxury in any global city. People who live and work in New York hardly have time to really stop and consider everything at our fingertips. It's like Louis C.K.'s genius rant about how we should be grateful that airplanes exist, but we're such petulant dickheads that we worry more about how shitty the food is and feel some type of way about having to fly coach. In 2015, you can call an Uber to take you home while ordering Seamless simultaneously and if you're lucky you'll pull up just as soon as the delivery person gets to your door. I mean, how fucking amazing is that?
That's definitely not the case in Milan. The pace is decidedly slower—hardly anything's open at 9am—and I'm already two espressos in while intermittently smoking the last of my Camel cigarettes. It's a habit that's too expensive to maintain in NYC, but when each pack costs 4 Euro, it's easy to get sucked back in.
I walked past the Stone Island store near the Duomo just as they were opening up. They had the recent Supreme collab in the window, so I went in to see if everything had sold through as quickly as it did stateside. All that was left were a few of the striped tees in odd sizes. The HTM Kobe Xs were also launching that day, so I took the Milanese subway for the first time to get myself closer to NikeLab.
When I arrived, I felt like such a huge herb. I came through in a lightweight Suitsupply sportcoat in light olive, a T By Alexander Wang white tee and some new pleated chinos I had recently gotten from the Kinfolk store in Brooklyn. Seeing how dudes dressed in Milan the day before had definitely influenced me a little, but seeing how these dudes dressed waiting in line was like seeing the Internet in real life.
Nestled in the Brera Design District, people in line were wearing Bred 1s, multicolor Flyknits and there was even a Yeezy 750 Boost sighting. All were paired with Palace and The Pool Aoyama sweatshirts and hoodies, Nike Tech Fleece, ripped denim and the kind of shit you see under the #alphet hashtag on Instagram. These guys were outfit grids come to life. It was amazing to see people come through the line just to dap people up and ask about what the stock was gonna be like.
5.
Once the doors opened, the other side of hype revealed itself. The shoes hadn't arrived and wouldn't be in for another two days. A Nike rep and the store's seemingly lone employee were being yelled at in, by my count, ten exasperated languages. People from Paris expressed how they had come to Milan just for this launch and refused to leave empty-handed. Outside, experienced Milanese campers were forming an independent list of names and sizes so the stock could be distributed accordingly when it eventually arrived.
French and Italian fuccbois are the best. Salt is so much better when it's imported. It's one thing to see it on Twitter and New York lines, but man, hearing righteous nerd anger over the inability to successfully purchase a material object is evidence that "New Slaves" are a very real thing. Don't get me wrong, I love things. I actively indulge in materialism. But simply knowing that there are literally millions of guys around the world who feel the same is a little validating, isn't it?
7.
Day 2, Afternoon
After the shitshow at LZ1, I hopped back on the subway and headed to Porta Genova to check out Slam Jam and Antonioli. Slam Jam was underwhelming, as their Milan outpost had only about three brands, including their Carhartt WIP collab. Antonioli was pretty cool, but I didn't buy anything. Traveling abroad to visit boutiques sort of loses its luster if you have the ability to go to sample sales or, you know, cop things off the Internet for less. While there's something to be said about the feeling of buying something in person abroad, I didn't see anything at Antonioli that triggered the consumer impulse in my cerebellum.
I walked a little more around Porta Genova, taking in the sights and admiring the view from the bridge over the Naviglio Grande, then headed back to meet Chris for lunch. He picked the spot, a trattoria called Bagutta, that was pretty legit. I don't really pride myself on being a foodie—clothing's the sole luxury I've chosen to nerd out about—but once you pay attention to the nuances of any particular thing, you can tell when something else is clearly superior.
8.
We finished lunch and downed a bottle of wine before walking down the Via Della Spiga and ended up in the Margiela men's shop, which from the back is hidden from view. From the front, it almost looks like an unassuming mansion with a front yard that's run rampant with a rusted bathtub overflowing with water and all manner of unkempt greenery. Margiela opened a new store that same week, which hews more closely with Galliano's new vision for the brand and feels super sterile in its stark whiteness, with a postmodern facade covering the balcony above the entrance.
The men's store is decidedly not that. It's got a carpet printed with a trompe l'oeil wooden floorboard pattern and a couch from the home collection that looks like an amalgam of three difference chairs held together by the white cloth draped over it. They also have GATs as entry-level menswear nerds and sneakerheads know all too well. Thanks to the dwindling Euro, getting a pair in Milan would actually net me a 40% discount as opposed to buying them in the U.S, so I made a pair of the OG white/grey joints my sole splurge of the trip.
9.
After that short excursion, we visited the Rick Owens store before heading to the showroom to look at the home collection. The brainchild of Rick's wife, Michelle Lamy, special pieces like wrought-iron chairs with cushions made of camel hide were done up for Salone Del Mobile. There was also an aggressive looking stool with a round brown cushion embossed with snakeskin and gray suede cushions atop dining benches made of leather treated and washed to look like horsehide. Despite aligning with Owens' brutalist aesthetic, it was suprsingly comfortable.
If I had to rank Rick Owens furniture by comfort, it would definitely go like this:
10.
5. Gray Leather Cushion
My tailbone sank right through this and instantly met the hard, wood bench below. Not pleasant. Couldn't sit through a dinner with $1,500 salad forks, hollowed-out steel utensils and terra cotta or brass flatware.
11.
4. Solid Wrought-Iron Stool
Surprisingly comfortable to sit in, surprisingly hard to move. Each triangular stool is made from one piece and the leather is actually stretched between the ass triangle you sit in.
12.
3. Snake-Embossed Stool
Would be the kind of seat you would find at Conan the Barbarian's bar. Would he call that his BAR-barian? Bad joke, but it's the perfect furniture to discuss what is best in life besides crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you and hearing the lamentations of their women.
13.
2. Camel Hide Love Seat
The Salone Del Mobile special camel furniture was definitely the king of the castle here. Sitting in this thing made me imagine Kanye West and Kim Kardashian slowly scrolling through their respective timelines while lounging on this thing, while North West lay between them swaddled in the fur of a Himalayan brown bear cub.
14.
1. Camel Hide Chair
I want this chair. This is the seat Khal Drogo keeps in his study when he thinks of new ways to pull his adversary's tongues out of their bodies, or reads Vanity Fair and plots his way to the top of the International Best Dressed list. All of this assuming, of course, that he wasn't dead.
We headed out of the showroom and stumbled onto a shop called DMagazine Outlet. It may or may not be affiliated with la Reppublica's D publication, which is like their version of The New York Times' T Magazine. Though I couldn't corroborate that, I can attest that the via Alessandro Manzoni location has its fair share of grail pieces for ridiculous prices. Chris and I spent a good hour in there digging, coming across Italian brands like Massimo Alba, Berluti and tons of Dirk Bikkembers. Amongst that, there was a healthy smattering of Saint Laurent Paris, Raf Simons, Maison Margiela and Dries Van Noten. I even found a Haider Ackermann reversible satin bomber for a very reasonable 665 Euros. Still too rich for my blood, but I hope it found a good home. There was also a pair of SLP palm tree-print slip-ons that were going for 145 Euros. I did end up leaving with a couple of Dries Van Noten tees, which were a steal at around 55 Euros each.
16.
Day 2, Evening
Before heading back to the hotel, Chris and I made one last stop at COS' Milan store. The men's stuff is pretty good, but a lot of the things I wanted off the site had sold out in store. I ended up copping a women's elongated M-65 lightweight parka that looks like something from Fear of God and fits like a sack in the best way possible. After spending most of the day suited up, it felt good to wear something decidedly more casual.
Snarkitecture's installation took place at the same building as last year's COS installation, this being their fourth partnership at Salone Del Mobile. Last year's was done with Japanese architects nendo, who also had an awesome retrospective at the Museo della Permanente. I met COS' head men’s designer, Martin Andersson, and their head women's designer, Karin Gustafsson, at the installation, which became kind of funny when Gustafsson made a knowing compliment about the jacket I was wearing and informed Andersson it was women's.
Walking inside the textile cave felt like entering an 8-bit video game. Long pieces of white fabric hung from the ceiling in varying lengths, begging to be hidden in and explored. It was easy to literally get lost in the labyrinth and there was even a secret room. Finding it felt like discovering Warren Robinett's seminal easter egg in Adventure. At the end of the installation was a pop-up shop with select clothes meant to complement its colors and texture, as well as tchotchkes and souvenirs designed in conjunction with Alex Mustonen and Daniel Arsham of Snarkitecture.
After, we had dinner at Il Baretto Al Baglioni, a restaurant in our hotel that was old world as fuck. You could smoke inside the restaurant, the lighting was the opposite of lit and the entire room looked like it was part of a ghostly fever dream in The Shining. The smoke in the air and the dim ambiance gave everything an ethereal gloss and putting down a bottle of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo abetted that reverie. I had ossobuco for the first time and it will go down as one of the most memorable meals in my life.
18.
Day 3
I woke up four hours later than I originally hoped, jet lag finally catching up with me. I had to rush back to the COS installation to interview the Snarkitecture guys as well as the head COS designers, then had a ton of free time, which I planned to use to check out Wallpaper* Handmade. En route, I stopped by the nendo retrospective and got a ton of walking in. I was breaking in my new kicks nicely, but the tongue had started digging into the top of my foot and was starting to draw blood. It took a half hour for me to find a Band-Aid, the first 10 minutes of which were spent trying to figure out the Italian word for "Band-Aid." FYI, it's "cerotto."
19.
I checked out the Toiletpaper exhibit within Handmade and several of the other pieces on display, including some 1:6 scale outfits made by Brioni. I headed back to 10 Corso Como to meet Chris, who was having drinks with the director John F. Maybury. A few Negronis in, we shot the shit about everything from Maybury's past work to explaining what "sliding into DMs" meant. Then, we went to see his partner's, the architect Nigel Coates, exhibition in which the interior of a house was redesigned to look like a specific castle owned by one of their friends. There was a really beautiful courtyard where they were serving red wine and a special kind of sausage made specifically for them by a local butcher.
20.
Since we were about to go to dinner with the COS crew, we merely sampled the offerings before hopping in a cab. Dinner was at a cozy restaurant called The Small, which has a vibe that mixes Mid-Century Modern furniture with rubber ducks and Mickey Mouse statues. It's hip, but not pretentiously so, sort of like having dinner at your friend's house where his or her parents are actually cooler than your friend.
Post-dinner, a bunch of us went to Bar Basso to meet with Alex Mustonen and some of the Snarkitecture folks. It reminded me of going to Gigli in Florence in the sense that every foreigner who was there for Milan Design Week or Salone Del Mobile was probably within that square block. Even though it was packed, getting drinks wasn't too difficult and more Negronis and whiskey were imbibed.
21.
At some point, we ended up buying a bunch of beer from a nearby pizza place and the drunk hunger monster yelled in my stomach, so I got a slice to keep it at bay. And holy fucking shit did it hit the spot. I had been wanting pizza ever since I landed in Milan and this was my first and only slice, eaten hastily at 2 in the morning while under the influence of several different alcohols. It was absolutely worth it.
23.
Day 4
I allowed myself four hours of sleep for two reasons. The first being so I'd be able to pass out as soon as I got on the plane. The second was because I had tickets to see the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit at the Palazzo Reale. In addition to being my favorite Ninja Turtle and 14th favorite Tom Hanks film, I thought getting as much culture in as I could would be a good thing.
Did you know Da Vinci wrote most of his personal notes upside down and backwards? That's crazy paranoid, if not straight-up psychopathic. I managed to sneak in some photos of the original Vitruvian Man because I'm really talented at taking pictures surreptitiously and also because we live in a digital world where, if you can't possibly turn something into a fire 'gram, it might as well not have even happened.
24.
The last few hours in Milan were spent walking around the city and checking out the 10 Corso Como Outlet, which was actually pretty dope and had some great deals on Margiela, Rick Owens and Raf Simons. Wandering the streets and seeing the sartorially inclined (SUP, LARRY?) sprezzatura'd out men made me come to a realization: These guys were the basic dudes of Milan. They're a reflection of where the bar is at and while it's light years ahead of what the average finance dude or lawyer in America dresses like, it's also what locally passes for "swagless."
25.
How dope is it that we live in a time where dudes who love to look and talk about clothes on the Internet can go to any city and find people of the same mindset and taste level? It's a trip how much the online menswear nerd has become the new jetset aesthetic. Ripped denim, designer sneakers, crisp white tee and a Rick Owens leather jacket say so much more about status and the mindset that comes with it than the business mook in a suit. This is the Age of the International Fuccboi. Get your passport.
