salone del mobile

the inauguration of salone del mobile, which is probably the most important design fair in the world, was a few nights ago. the trade show is accompanied by fuorisalone, literally translates to outside the salon, all over milano, during which time showrooms, galleries, studios and stores and open until all hours of the night and the city teems with designers, industry people and enthusiasts from all over the globe. i've been looking forward to this week since i arrived in italy and thus far i have not been disappointed.

my school scheduled our class on management of design-based companies to coincide with design week, which was quite brilliant on its part. tuesday night, after an abysmal attempt to go out with some friends to check out opening cocktail events, i ran into anna, a friend whom i've been thinking about for some time. a friend from the mafed and i ended up hanging out with anna, her boyfriend and some fantastic friends of theirs until late. one of the best things about italy (or really the world outside of the united states) is that there are no open bottle laws here, so i went to the kebab shop, spent 3 euro on a large bottle of beck's, and enjoyed it outdoors in the company of about 500 other people. it was fantastic, really.



last night (thursday) after taking it easy wednesday, read: going-out-light, i went to an aperitivo at strafbar with a couple of friends from school and friends of friends. then we went to the kartell store, drank a couple glasses of free prosecco and then to g lounge, where i danced the night away surrounded by (mostly) gay men. i scored ten additional points when i spilled someone's drink straight into one of my favorite ankle boots - yes, my foot was in it at the time. another excellent night.

today really kicked ass.

woke up hung over, sleep deprived and shall we say, slightly disoriented. i managed to break through the hangover by the time i was in the shower and got myself out the door on time, dry hair, looking decent (save your applause please). after a few minor hiccups and a very crowded metro, i arrived at the rho fiera complex where the salone del mobile is held. words cannot describe how incredibly, unbelievably, amazingly ridiculous this show is. it is chock-full of the most important design companies in the entire world. i was awestruck.



you would've been too...i promise. this afternoon we went on a couple of tours of the showrooms of some pretty amazing companies: b&b italia and boffi which were utterly amazing. so, at the end of a long long LONG week, i'm happy - and lying in bed. here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.

tie me off and shoot me up...

i went to micam yesterday, which is one of the biggest shoe trade shows, basically in the world. it was completely amazing. i got a major fix yesterday and today my soul feels nice and full.

when i worked at city soles, all of my favorite companies were those that my boss saw here in milan. i never had any access to them and had no opportunity to understand who the people were behind all of those unbelievable shoes. it was clear to me that these companies, TP and Moma in particular, were the ones that i wanted to get to know the best. yesterday, i finally had that opportunity, and it was utterly amazing.

i was just walking around, checking out booths and taking in the scene, when i was approached by a very tall russian woman, who i had seen earlier modeling some shoes. she asked me where i was from. when i told her that i am american and that i had worked in the industry for a few years, she invited me to come to see her collection. basically she asked to give them some opinions and perhaps some advice about getting into stores in the us. as it turned out, the company was actually a small manufacturer from barcelona, who had some really great ideas, but were scattered all over the place. i told them they needed to tighten up their offering and gave them some tips on which stores to talk to. they were so happy that we had spoken, that they gave me a bottle of spanish wine and invited me to visit them in barcelona. i'm totally going to do that, by the way. it was really really lovely.

the second fantastic thing that happened, was that i ran into a shoe designer from new york, whom i've known for a couple years now...and i completely adore. i sat with her in her booth and talked for about an hour and a half. it was totally great. she's been in the business for such a long time and had so many insightful things to say. she's great! i'm always so happy to see her, but this time in particular.

the third and most amazing, wonderful stupendous event of yesterday was the time i spent talking to the people at TP, which as i mentioned earlier is one of my all time favorite shoe companies in life. it's a factory in marche, that makes most of its money by manufacturing for other companies, but has this totally unbelievable, kind of avant garde line, that's just really amazing. there's a woman working for them, about my age actually, american, who's been living in italy now for the past almost seven years and has been doing all kinds of things in the industry. we sat and talked for like two hours. it was stupendous. i also spoke with a man who is clearly in a managerial position at TP, although what specifically, i don't know. he told me that the company was looking for someone like me who is passionate about the product to represent them in the us. yay! job! i told him that i would be coming to the marche in the next few months and that we would talk more then.

theeeen...i met up with a guy who owns a store in portland, actually who i met through scott starbuck (old city soles boss). nathan and i had a great time, just talking and walking around. we went to a couple really great stores near the duomo in milan. i finally bought some good olive oil to eat raw on salads and things. then we picked up a friend of his and went to aperitivo. it was really great conversation, about all kinds of things. we talked a ton about the future of the industry and retail in general in the us. it really got my blood pumping and my brain racing again.

all in all, a really really fantastic day.

"school" or "the most kick-ass master program on the face of the earth"

this past thursday, the first day of my program, was a full day of introductions. the director and our various course coordinators spoke to us about all the areas of the program that await us over the next year. i pretty much spent the entire day with a shit-eating grin on my face. i almost peed my pants i was so excited.

the program is composed of about six months of intensive course-work (basically like one year in a normally paced masters), then a solid month working on field projects, then half time seminars/classes and half time field project work. if you examine the calendar closely, my one year program is kind of like a super condensed two year program.

there are lots of great things about it, but probably the most fantastic thing of all is the field project. ten or eleven different companies pay a fee to the program for a consultancy regarding an upcoming need that the company has, e.g. new market entry, retail reformatting, etc. so basically the groups from my program take on these various projects, some of which involve travel, and produce results. the groups then present these results in front of the board of directors of the company. un-fucking-believable! when i heard that i almost passed out! i knew that this program would provide me with access, but i had absolutely no idea that it would be this kind of access. so, yeah...awesome, amazing, stupendous. this doesn't guarantee a job or anything, but at least it gives me an idea of what kind of connections this program has. totally and completely fantastic!

my return to milan, my departure from milan, and my return again.

i keep on trying to sit down and blog about all of this stuff, but it's been really difficult to find time, energy and internet access all at the same time lately. get ready for a long one.

i returned to milan on saturday morning having not slept a wink on my redeye flight. i waited an eternity for my baggage which forced me to push back my meeting with my new landlord to take possession of my (adorable) studio. when i eventually figure out how to post photos in the blog, you'll see some. anyway, after a minor, annoying elevator adventure, i caught the train back to the city from malpensa.

i met with the landlord and got my place. by this time i was completely delirious, but i knew that i had to stay awake until it was time to go to sleep for the night. so, i went to the center of town, near the duomo, to look for some bed linens since saturday was the first day of the sales here. it was a madhouse and i didn't find anything anyway. i had seen some sheets at a store called upim which is in my neighborhood. it's kind of like a more upscale target, but smaller with a narrower selection, just clothes, home and a few cosmetics. i didn't buy them b/c i thought i might be able to find something "better" on sale in the center. note: i bought a deeply discounted set of 800 thread count sheets about a year ago which have completely ruined me. now i'm a total linen snob, which is really sad when you have no money.

upon my return from my unsuccessful shopping trip, i went to the grocery store and totally wacked out and bleary eyed bought cleaning products (for the apt that really needed them) and only the food that was easy to prepare. i ended up forgetting some totally essential food items, which made cooking the things i did buy virtually impossible. thank god for jet lag right?

while i was in the grocery store i got a call from francesca tosca, my old landlord/housemate. i went to collect the rest of my things at her apt, where they had been since i left in a hurry and ate dinner there (she made polenta...yum). her son alessandro, whom i had met previously happened to be in town so i spent the evening with them. at about eight o'clock i was so tired that i literally thought i was going to collapse, so right after i ate, i took a cab with my suitcases and bags back to my apartment. i put sheets on the bed, made a couple of phone calls and passed out, expecting to sleep through the night.

i was up at 3 in the morning.

i couldn't go back to sleep to save my life. so i cleaned and unpacked, which i had planned to do the next day. i finally went to sleep again around 8:30 in the morning and didn't wake up until 3:30. so now it's sunday. a good italian friend of mine was returning from london that night and we had made plans to get together. so since i had to kill some time i took a walk around.

sunday in milan is really a day of rest, because you have no other choice. everything is closed. you literally can't even shop for groceries because stores aren't open. so, you better have something already planned to do or else you will be seriously bored. the one sunday when things are open is the first sunday in january because of the sales. so i finally bought some bedsheets - those that i had seen in upim on my first examination, imagine that - and various other things for the house. took a walk up to the duomo and sat and drank coffee for a few hours and talked to the servers. my friend didn't end up getting home until super late so we didn't get together. i somehow ended up staying up until three in the morning. you might expect that i would have slept through the night at that point, but alas...no.

i was up at five thirty.

at about seven thirty that morning i decided that i really wanted to get out of town. i had been thinking about pete and had started reading a book on grieving that bill bought for me. milan was dreary and none of my friends were here yet. the one who had arrived was departing for switzerland to be with her family. so, i decided to take the train to rome. oh, and i forgot to mention that my internet went out early sunday evening.

so, i went over to my friend isa's house (the one who left for switzerland) had coffee, used her internet and dropped off some uggs that i had brought back for her. i checked the train schedule for rome and basically dashed back to my house (a subway and a tram) and ran around my house getting ready for a totally unplanned, last minute trip to rome. let me also say that by this time, i was so tired and nuts that i was nauseous, hot and shivering. i basically kept telling myself just to stay awake for one more hour because then i could sleep on the train. and i did sleep, some.

when i arrived in rome, i realized that i had absolutely no idea what to do or where to go. i wasn't terribly worried, since after all, i speak italian. i went to an internet cafe, called bill to tell him where i was (not that it really made that much of a difference as rome and milan are both far far away from chicago) and to find a hostel. found one, and walked over there. i passed a couple of AMAZING shoe stores. i'm totally convinced that the shopping is better in rome than milan, at least for non-designer labels. hopefully i'll have more time and money sometime soon to test this theory.

i walked around rome that night, which is totally beautiful. i met up with a roman friend who drove me around for a little night time tour of the city which was lovely and then went back to the hostel to pass out around 1.

i was up at 5, again. now it's tuesday.

that day i went with some americans (adorable, nice, from wyoming) around the city. we had an amazing breakfast in campo dei fiori. i bought some unbelievable spices there for very little money.

i also went to piazza navona which is this very famous gorgeous place that was completely nuts. january 6th in italy is a huge holiday called epifania (epiphany). it's actually a catholic holiday celebrating the visit of the magi to the baby jesus, but there's no other place that celebrates like italy. in italy the children have a sock hung on the wall and a with named la befana comes to give them candy if they're good and coal if they're bad. la befana also symbolizes all the bad things that have happened and sweeps them away, which is why she's often associated with brooms. the piazza was full of vendors selling everything, food, balloons, etc.

then i went through the coliseum and the ruins. i have never seen anything so beautiful and humbling in my entire life. i took a million pictures, but in truth they don't come close to doing it justice. everyone should see this place. to stand in a building that has existed for 2000 years is something that i simply have no words to explain.

i decided to leave rome that night on an overnight train for two reasons: it was about half the price, and the hostel that i was staying in was really gross and i didn't feel like sleeping there again or finding another one. so that night, after having an amazing dinner and conversation with an old friend of my father's and her husband, i went to the train station to leave. when i went to buy my ticket it said that there were no seats available so i figured the train was sold out. there were no seats available on any train that night. i, the most exhausted that i have ever been in my life, started to freak out. i went to the ticket counter and asked the woman sitting behind the desk about it. i was speaking english at this point because i was so tired i could barely remember my own name, let alone how to speak italian. she told me that i could buy a ticket, i just couldn't have a seat. i said, ok, fine, whatever, i'll hussle one up or something. now, let me also say, that i was flushed, shivering and my stomach was turning somersaults i was so tired. i got on the train and it was packed. there was not a single seat to be had. i got off a couple of times and ran up and down the train looking for seats. no such luck. in my travels i had met a nice family so i went back to their compartment to ask if i could store my things there, while i sat on a jump seat in the hallway for my eight hour train ride. they said ok.

i curled sitting on the floor in the aisle and prepared to go to sleep. just then one of the guys sitting in the compartment offered me his seat. he gave it to me for almost the entire train ride. i almost kissed him (sorry honey). he ended up wandering around and smoking cigarettes in between the cars all night. i talked to this totally hilarious family from mantua for most of the night. we parted ways, but they invited me to come to their house for dinner some sunday. i'm definitely going. when they got off the train in parma, at 5 am, i finally got to sleep.

we arrived in milan at 7:30 in the morning to five inches of snow of the ground, which is way more snow than is typical in one snow fall. it ground the city to a complete halt almost. i walked from my the duomo to my house, which took some time in the snow. i arrived home around 9:15 and basically slept for the rest of the day.

the next morning, today, was my first day of class. it was amazing and i have lots to say about it, but i think it's much much more than enough already for one day, so you'll just have to wait for the next installment.

xoxoxo