Family Vibes at Salone del Mobile in Milano
La Terra Di Neena Launch at Spazio Maiocchi
Our first stop of the week was for the highly anticipated launch of Tyler Billinger’s new brand, La Terra di Neena at Capsule Plaza. The certified organic extra virgin olive oil alongside a collection of dishware and gorgeous blocks of soap are derived from and inspired by his family-owned Tuscan olive farm — his mum Neena is the brand’s namesake — and like the house itself were designed in partnership with Harry Nuriev and Crosby Studios.
“While the metallic surfaces and monochromatic palette of our collection speak the visual language of today’s digital world, La Terra di Neena has fundamentally transformed our relationship with time,” explains Billinger. “Working with the land has forced us to disconnect from the instant gratification of the digital realm and embrace nature’s slower, more deliberate rhythms. It’s why we’re launching exclusively in person. We want people to experience these objects tangibly first, to hold them and feel their weight, to inhale the earthy aroma of our olive oil and savor its distinctive taste before they become another fleeting image on a screen.”
Unifrom's Scent Previe "Florum" with Ambrigio Fiori
Stockholm-based and French-produced fragrance oil company, Unifrom™ previewed its eighth and latest scent “Florum,” with some really delicious non-alcoholic wine by Oddbird and surrounded by beautiful arrangements designed by Milan’s most sought-after floral atelier, Ambrogio Fiori. “I was always against making florals,” explains Haisam Mohammed, the brand’s founder. “They never resonated with me, maybe because I didn’t grow up around gardens or flowers. But what did inspire me were the dandelions growing through cracks in the concrete. In the projects, we’d call ourselves 'dandelion children' — kids raised in tough conditions who found a way to bloom. That idea of beauty, rooted in resilience, guided this scent.
“Unifrom began as a way to create fragrances that weren’t rooted in Eurocentric traditions,” continues Mohammed. “I grew up in a high-rise in Stockholm where neighbors came from all over the world. The hallways were always filled with the smells of food, incense, and blended spices. That scent — accidental, rich, and layered — became the foundation for Unifrom. I made my first samples and started selling them in clubs around Stockholm, which turned out to be the perfect testing ground.”
- unifrom.com to purchase
Flash Art Volumes x Converse Intimate Dinner
Our favorite family dinner of the week was at Galleria Zero and in celebration of the release of Flash Art Volume’s second issue titled “Crisis Formalism” and curated by Michael Abel and Nile Greenberg of New York-based architecture practice ANY. Guests, including buddies like photographer Ale Simonetti, artist Dozie Kanu and coverstar/skateboarder Remy Taveira were gifted the aforementioned wine-dyed Converse All-Stars while flipping through the new issue which critically examines the intricate entanglement between architecture and the polycrisis that defines our era.
“‘Crisis Formalism’ is a creative position which holds that an artwork’s value lies in the relationship it establishes between different compositional elements. Abel and Greenberg select and engage with different profiles across the world to bring diverse perspectives to difficult questions, reminding all of us that we are living in interesting times,” says Alessio Avventuroso, Creative Director of Flash Art.
Abel and Greenberg expand on this perspective, stating: “Today’s scenario is murkier. In our present day, even the neatest problems seems entangled with countless others, forming what Edgar Morin calls the ‘polycrisis,’ an explosive web that confounds both institutional structures and our own inherited frameworks. Where architecture once believed in its capacity to generate stable meaning, today’s swirl of economic, environmental, and political emergencies had undone that assumption. Many now retreat from architecture toward more concrete political acts — upstream into policy and finance, downstream into labor, energy, and carbon. Yet, that collective turmoil need not erode architecture’s cultural potency. ‘Crisis Formalism’ contends that form — long dismissed as a mere aesthetic flourish — can become the container of crisis, a site where intensities catalyze subversive architectures that reclaim a lost political agency. Put simply, what are the formal implications of crisis?”
- Read more on the latest issue here.
Soft Reflections By Lucia Neamtu at Alcova Milano
Just outside of the city, Alcova held its annual showcase of contemporary design and our favorite of the installations at the gorgeous Villa Bagatti Valsecchi was the Soft Reflections collection of Italian furniture by New York-based Moldovian designer, Lucia Neamtu. Inspired by the waves of the Ligurian Sea, the immensely selfie-worthy Veiled Mirrors and Melted Murano Lights were created in collaboration with 300-year-old family-owned marble company Bufalini Marmi.
We asked Neamtu, about how she started to work with such an iconic company like Bufalini: “I went to Carrara to look for a marble manufacturer two years ago but didn’t find a good fit. After asking around, I finally found Alberto Bufalini through a mutual friend. We clicked straight away and he was very interested to work with a new artist. We’ve been working together since and have a beautiful relationship. I often go to visit with them; we have lunch or dinner with the entire family and it just feels more like a friendship than work. It’s the Italian way!”
- lucianeamtu.com for more information