Milan Design Week 

With JJ Martin

Join fashion’s favorite maximalist (and the woman who knows everyone in Milan) for a colorful behind-the-scenes tour of Milan’s Design Week (aka The Fashion Week of Home). If you don’t love print already, you will now.

Ciao Moda People! Italy's Salone del Mobile—the world’s largest furniture fair—has just wound down and I’m officially passing out on the couch. It was a busy week! My brand La DoubleJ had three projects with various Italian specialists: a brand new porcelain plate collection and coffee service with Ancap, a new Murano glass collection with Salviati and a furniture collection with Kartell. In between showing all of that to editors and buyers, I hopped around town in my little vintage Fiat Cinquecento dropping in on friends and seeing what all the buzz was about.

Getting around Milan during Design Week is not easy: every taxi in town is taken. That’s why I used my little vintage car that seems to park anywhere—including the sidewalk! This is right out in front of Vogue Italia’s party that they threw in Condé Nast Italy’s headquarters in which every office was re-made-over by an architect or designer. My Swedish artist friend Liselotte Watkins who lives in Rome snapped this photo.

It was super fun seeing how everyone was styling La DoubleJ this week—from Amy Astley, Editor-in-Chief of Architectural Digest, who scooped up one of our peasant shirts to the ever-stylish Susanne Thun, who is an expert at mixing prints. The vibe at the Salone is a bit like an art fair. Everyone wears flats—all the time!