A postcard from Milan
For my precious paid subscribers!
Just an FYI that this note was written on Monday evening and I am sending it out on the Friday because I didn’t have time to totally finish at the airport, so if the chronology feels a little confusing, that is why.
Also, if this email cuts off in your inbox, you can read it in full here.
Onwards!
I’m back! I’m here! And after three months' absence, I am writing this letter to you on a beautiful spring evening at Milan Linate airport.
I arrived here on Friday with my colleague Lauren to set up an exhibition at Milan Design Week called the Beauty of Circularity for our client Tarkett, a big European flooring company.
It was the culmination of four months of hard work, and seeing it come to life over the past few days has been the absolute dream. Here it is in all its glory, showcasing the circular design, materials, and manufacturing systems of Tarkett’s linoleum and carpet flooring:
Not to wax lyrical about flooring, but Tarkett is a pretty special company that designs all its products to be made and remade using the same materials over and over. I am working on a few other projects for them as well, and I love being involved with a client that cares so much about their environmental impact, that is constantly innovating, and investing so much in the storytelling around that innovation so that other companies might take inspiration from them and reconsider the way they do things in their own spheres and industries.
But it wasn’t all work. We were in Milan, for god’s sake, and no one was going to stop Lauren and me from eating well, drinking well, and having a grand old time.
The exhibition was spitting distance from the Duomo, so at the end of the first day, we wandered the streets in search of an aperitivo and a nibble to eat before meeting the production team for dinner later that evening.
We settled on this spot for a Negroni Spagliato each and a big plate of melt-in-your-mouth Prosciutto di Parma. This flavour of hole-in-the-wall is my favourite in any city, and in Milan, that meant vintage fonts (no sans-serif in sight), wood panelling, old pictures on the walls, and men with thick hands playing cards and drinking tiny glasses of liqueur.
We met the rest of the team around 8:30 at a seafood restaurant around the corner, where my favourite dish was this slightly charred octopus. A fact that fills me with guilt because I’ve watched My Octopus Teacher three times and have a real affinity with octopuses now. It’s a shame they taste so good because I really can’t help myself sometimes. We also drank three bottles of wine and a limoncello each to polish off the evening.
On the Saturday, we had a full day of finalising set-up, styling the tables, and making the big bags of material look a healthy balance of haphazard and sculptural. It might look like they are just bags full of crap but they actually took me several hours to get right. During that time, I was brought a deep-fried sandwich filled with sausage and broccoli rabe, and a fat slice of mortadella pizza with creamy ricotta and pistachios — no photos of these, unfortunately. Too hungry.
My friend Gigi was also in town for Milan Design Week, so yesterday evening, after a day shooting with our Latvian photographer Vigo, we met up at a bar called Il Coloniale. It had shelves of bottles and Italian deli fare lining the walls and a tiny bar where we got our wine, prosecco, spritz, and small plates of nibbles, which swifly got blown to oblivion by the wind when we sat outside. We ended up finding a perch indoors, and stood around — me, Gigi, and some of her friends — chatting and drinking and moving out of the way for people trying to get to the toilet.
Around the corner from our beautiful Airbnb, Lauren and I had spotted an Osteria that we wanted to try. It was another one of those wood-panelled, unpretentious, local ones that I like.
So after parting ways with Gigi, I met Lauren there for saffron risotto with Osso Bucco (for her) and Polenta and slow-cooked beef and mushrooms (for me). I often make polenta at home with lots of roasted veggies, but this one was something else. The polenta itself was much thicker with a deep corn flavour that I love, and the slow-cooked beef — well, it was slow-cooked beef, what do you want me to say? It was stunning.
Today was press day, and my last in Milan. I wish I had booked another day on my own dime to see more of the other exhibits around the city, but at least I got to look around the other showcases in the Palazzo dei Guiroconsulti, where we were. Here are some of them — I love the colours!
It was quite shocking to me that I allowed 4 days to go by without once getting myself a gelato. Each day, the time slipped right by me or I got too full to even fathom another mouthful.
So on my way to the airport, I finally stopped and got myself a scoop to eat in the sun before descending into the Milan Metro and into the abyss that is modern-day air travel. I got a small cup of the tiramisu and pistachio flavours, and they were the perfect full stop to an incredibly rewarding few days of work and life.
I am back in London now, and work looks as though it might settle down slightly in the coming weeks, so I am looking forward to getting back to writing these newsletters more frequently. I’ve got lots of ideas — I just need a minute to actually write them down.
Lots of love!
Annabel
Post-script of Lauren and me in the lift down to the garage of our Airbnb because the front door of the building was unopenable. We were in good spirits about it.
Sounds like you had a good time in Milan, That makes me glad. Don't feel guilty about the octopus, they have survived for millions of years. They are intelligent, with nine brains and have adapted to live in all of the oceans in different habitats. The company you were working for sounded interesting.
Bye for now, Jim.