Highlights from Milan Design Week 2011- Soaking in the Sunshine at Rossana Orlandi

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Highlights from Milan Design Week 2011- Soaking in the Sunshine at Rossana Orlandi

(I didn't take this picture but I love it. The only pictures that are mine in this piece are the ones of Nika's work and Botanica)

With her signature oversized glasses and wrapped in cocoon like layers, Rossana Orlandi floats like a style apparition through the laid back crowd as the sun shines through the fauna in the courtyard at the eponymous Spazio Rossana Orlandi. All week this destination gallery has been the de facto oasis for the weary design crowd looking for respite, a place to mingle and have a glass of wine or beer and a plate of light fare (all proceeds dedicated to charity.)

Among the design eye candy in the courtyard stands an installation by design duo James Plumb (James Russell and Hannah Plumb) whose dusty elegance first caught my eye at Tent London 2009. A stage was outfitted with a bed backed by faded disintegrating fabric, a table split in two around a grandfather clock, and simple worn shelves stacked with old suitcases. It looked like a scene from Terrence Malik’s 1978 classic, Days of Heaven set in the early part of the last century in frontier America. The designers themselves completed the tableau.

Another highlight from the three floors of gallery space were the Sé collection with designer Jaime Hayon which reminded me of the first three seasons of Mad Men yet wholly modern with a color palette ranging from white to blue-grey to gold and a balance of decidedly contemporary lines and shapes mixed in with mushroom cloud modernism. (I first reported on this collection for BecauseLondon.com by Tank Magazine.)

Upstairs on the other side, Nika Zupanc’s installation for Selfridges included an Alice in Wonderland like wardrobe made to look like an oversized accordion file.

At Rosanna Orlandi, Nika Zupanc's attache wardrobe

At Rosanna Orlandi, Nika Zupanc

Everything was fantastic room by room but the diversity of her vision can be seen downstairs at Studio Formafantasma’s “Botanica”, a meditation on the evolution of polymers in our lives, objects “designed as if the oil-based era in which we are living never took place,” beautiful amber vessels, lamps, and boxes that look to contain a botanist’s collection of discoveries in the forest. The exhibit reflects on a time when we were first discovering and experimenting with plasticity using derivatives from plants and other organic materials. To read more, go to www.formafantasma.com.