Il placere dell’italia

When it comes to Italy, every time I go there I feel at home. It is true that I don’t know the south of Italy, the farthest I have gone is Rome, but it would be one of the countries that I would go to by car and it would take me many months to return. I would stop in every town and every city, in the middle of the road and in the middle of nowhere, just to admire the scenery. I do not know how many times I have been to Milan and Florence and I have been lucky enough to walk many of its streets, I have even had a daughter living in Milan and there was nothing that made me more excited than going to spend a few days. Before my daughter left, I had my friend Marc, who had a room in his house with my name on it from all the times I went there, I think almost once a month, for many, many years.

I have lived some of the happiest and most enjoyable moments of my life there, I have met incredible people, among them my dearest Steffano Baccari, one of the great and wonderful landscape painters of that country. With him, I have traveled a lot around Milan and he has taken me to incredible places, restaurants, corners, parties, and dinners, where I have met very interesting people.

On one of my trips to Milan, I discovered the Furniture Fair. I had never been there before, at least 15 years ago, I had always gone to the Fashion Week, but I discovered before me the best furniture and design fair I had ever seen. The whole city was turned upside down, great architects and designers, with new and talented beginners, assemblies, brands, visitors, private houses turned into spaces where novelties were presented, exhibitions, parties, never in any of the fashion weeks had I seen something similar and with such a good vibe. Hand in hand with Steffano, with whom it was a pleasure to walk around the city, I could see how its streets were transformed. t was a continuous coming and going of projects, staging, and creativity. I even ended up at a birthday party of Patricia Urquiola that was celebrated in a ballroom of what I believe was a police station.

Before me, there was a world that had nothing to do with mine and which from that first fair I fell in love with. On one of my trips to the Furniture Fair, we went to Rossana Orlandi’s space and I fell in love. If Corso Como at the time was and remains an unavoidable destination, even for a coffee, or Carla Sozzani’s Gallery on the top floor, Spazio Ro was the mecca of design. There I discovered Alvaro Catalán D’Ocón and his wonderful lamps and many other designers and of course its owner who left me in awe. The same happened to me with Rossana Orlandi as it did with Franca Sozzani when we met in Corso Como, I just watched them and they seemed to me such beautiful women. Women with something special, I do not know if it was strength, a sense of aesthetic, elegance, I can not say, but I know that there are people who occupy the whole space with their presence and you can not stop looking at them.

In this issue, we have been fortunate enough to interview Rossana Orlandi for our cover, thanks to the pen of Ana Dominguez Siemens, who has been interviewing her for many years and knows her work very well. We also encounter Ro Guiltless Plastic, her wonderful project that this year

celebrates its third edition, to give a new life to plastic and the waste it produces, through the creativity of different designers from around the world. We are moved by their commitment to design and the discovery of new talents, but what really matters and seduces us in these times is their work towards the care of the environment.

In addition to all this, we have taken a walk through some places in Italy through different artists, institutions, hotels, designers, foundations, exhibitions, and everything that we liked, leaving many things behind along the way, but that will appear in the coming issues.

What we could not forget in this issue, was two Italian and international women who left us recently. Each was an important reference in my world: Elsa Peretti and Raffaella Carra. Both lived here for many years, in fact, Elsa died in her beloved home in Gerona and Raffaella could be considered as much ours and as Spanish as any of us. Two women, creative, revolutionary, passionate, with a clear role for the recognition of their work and as great fighters. They were ahead of their time, a time when society was very macho in both Italy and Spain. They marked a style that still prevails today, one through their jewels, the other through their songs that we have danced and sung throughout our lives, and that the younger generations also sing as if they were in the top ten of today’s charts.

Two disparate women, Elsa was sensual, elegant, refined, rich, and with a very defined sense of aesthetics, surrounded by the most intellectual and creative characters throughout her career. Raffaela was sexy, explosive, funny, mischievous, full of glitter, the opposite of Elsa’s elegance, but the two were united by many struggles: the recognition of their work as women, labor, and LGBTQ+ rights. All in all, two very different people with many things in common.

This Italian-inspired issue is like my home, you are all welcome, you can read our pages while you can enjoy “Il dolce far niente”.