Design Anatomy

Milan Design Week: From Viral Installations to Quiet Magic Moments

• Bree Banfield and Lauren Li • Season 3 • Episode 11

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Milan Design Week can look like a never-ending highlight reel, but the real story lives outside the frame. What you don’t get from Instagram is the atmosphere: the scent in a private apartment, the soundscape in an installation, the scale of a palazzo hiding behind an ordinary street door, and the way a space can hit your nervous system in an instant. We’re fresh back from Paris and Milan and ready to share the honest debrief, including the parts that are chaotic, emotional and properly joyful.

We talk about why this year felt so positive, how hospitality in Paris completely challenges the “rude Parisian” myth, and why being treated like “entrepreneurs” at the Musée d'Orsay still makes us smile. Then we get nerdy about interiors and furniture design: what reads one way online but changes in person, how prototypes and production timelines make trend fatigue feel weirdly premature, and why context matters when you’re judging a piece you’ve only ever seen on a screen. If you love Salone del Mobile, Studio Pepe, Muuto, and the craft of creating a mood in a room, you’ll feel right at home.

We also get practical about navigating Milan Design Week: queues, planning versus winging it, brand installations you might love (or happily skip), and how chasing a single “social media moment” can send you to the wrong side of town. To wrap it up, we share the unexpected highlights that actually linger, like an unplanned Aperol spritz after a huge fair day, a Brera dinner that turns into a singalong, and a chance encounter that opens doors you didn’t even know existed.

If you’re dreaming about going one day, or you’ve been and you’re still processing it, listen along and tell us how you do Milan: tight itinerary or total spontaneity. 

Reachout to @design.anatomy.podcast, @bree.banfield or @sisalla_interior_design to join our waitlist for more information about The Design Anatomy Tour 2027.

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Join Lauren online for a workshop on Thursday May 21st to help break down pricing & fees for 2026! You'll learn: 

  • What has worked for Lauren over the past year
  • What hasn’t worked, and what she has changed
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For more info see below

The Pricing Shift: How I Structure My Fees in 2026.

Back From Travel And Catch-Ups

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Design Anatomy, the Interior Design Podcast hosted by friends and fellow designers, me Brie Banfield.

SPEAKER_02

And me, Lauren Lee, with some amazing guest appearances along the way. We're here to break down everything from current trends to timeless style.

SPEAKER_00

With a shared passion for joyful colour field and lived-in spaces, we're excited to share our insights and inspiration with you. And we are back.

SPEAKER_03

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02

It's been a pretty hard come down to reality, to be honest. I have spent a couple of weeks doing a bit of work, but there has been a bit of reminiscing and faffing about going on, to be honest. But it's good to be back. Good to be back on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00

Oh definitely. I did I did almost forget how to set everything up and the microphone.

SPEAKER_02

Well, considering that we thought we'd have a quick catch-up before the podcast recording, and it's been over two hours, and we should have probably pressed play before.

SPEAKER_00

Oh well, that's classic us, though. We often often underestimate how long these things are gonna take. Yeah, yeah. It's probably because I tell you stories about my life that has absolutely nothing to do with what we're supposed to be talking about.

SPEAKER_02

We we catch up. I can't disclose them right now, but yes, there were stories. I love it.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, let's keep those ones um, yes, in the DMs. We did not record those ones, no.

Instagram Versus Being There

SPEAKER_02

So today we thought we would share um some highlights about our tour, but probably more sort of talking about this kind of Instagram versus reality and what it actually feels like to be in Milan.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think there's always I think probably more so over the last couple of years and and this year in particular, there's a lot of discussion about, you know, what the mood is like there, how people are feeling about Milan Design Week as as an event overall. And I kind of want to say that I I'm really still quite positive about it. I know there's a lot of negativity, and I think it's really interesting to hear everyone's thoughts because there's people who aren't there and seeing it all through the lens of everyone else via social media and making judgments or seeing things, you know, like it's that whole thing of like the gram versus reality, which I've experienced a little bit, you know, even just with people kind of saying to me, Oh my god, you're like on a month-long holiday. And it actually, I I did take a bit of a break at the end of the work part of the trip, which was only just over a week. But everyone thinks I've been all money.

SPEAKER_02

Let them think that's delevanting around.

SPEAKER_00

And of course it looks like that because on Instagram I share with you all the fun stuff. I don't share every boring bit of me sitting at my laptop, you know, doing reports and and emails and all the rest of it that I'm still doing while I know while I am away. But it's that same thing, isn't it? Right? There's the whole what you actually get through the lens is not always the reality of being there on the ground.

SPEAKER_02

And I would argue it's better, obviously.

SPEAKER_00

It's better to be Yeah, we're just getting all the best bits, really.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my god. Like, yeah, I think.

SPEAKER_00

But you miss the you miss the atmosphere, right? You miss the nuances.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. And I mean, I remember that before I got to know you and I would see you, Brie, you know, in Milan, just like it looked amazing. And I would be watching all of your stories and all your posts, and and that's part of it, you know. And to be honest with you, it's all of that and more. Like it is so amazing. So I I think, you know, you sort of touched on there was that there have been a few negative comments, which I'm just like, are we not experiencing the same place? Like, yeah, this is so exciting. It's so oh well, that's what we're gonna be talking about. How amazing it is. And I think we are more glass half full kind of gals.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I I think anyone that that knows me even just a little bit will know that I'm a fairly positive person and I usually know how to put a positive spin on things. But we just you don't need to exactly, and I but I'm also authentic. I'm not going to, you know, tell you something's amazing if it's not. I'm also going to be pretty straight with you.

SPEAKER_02

But I don't think even Milan needs a positive spin. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Well, I I I feel no, I agree. How I guess we're just, you know, aware of the fact that there's a lot more discussion, you know, internationally, not just from Australians that, you know, we're we know of that have um, and I'm talking about the the handful. I think as a overall, and you and I spent a lot of time with other Australians in Milan, and I didn't get any kind of negative feedback from them. You know, we're always going to have things that we'll discuss and critique, I suppose is a good way to put it. But the overall vibe was just incredibly positive. I would say, even actually, one of the best years I've had at Design Week, just because of the general gorgeous mood that I, the energy that I experienced from the people around us while I was there, was I don't know, was just really joyful. Everybody was just so grateful. You know, we were talking about maybe I said this in social media as well, maybe it's because there's a lot of uncertainty around travel at the moment. So we were all super grateful to be there. The world's kind of a bit of a binfire. Yeah. So maybe it's that too, just being like so happy to be in a place where, you know, we're surrounded by amazing people, beautiful design, amazing experiences, whether they're, you know, all positive and beautiful and polished, or whether they're like raw and interesting and making us think about things, that's kind of what we're there for. So, like, where else would we want to be? And you haven't mentioned the food. Gosh, it's one of my favorite bits.

SPEAKER_02

Isn't it like it's just so many layers to it, I guess. So, um, and I think, you know, exactly what you said, I kept saying, I just feel so relieved. I just feel so relieved because it was such a build-up and you know, we do our tour. So I am so grateful that everybody came. Everybody came on the tour, like amazing. Yeah. Because I don't want to understate, you know, how how stressful it can be to travel when there's world events going on that are impacting us directly. We made it happen. We got there. And when we when I my feet touched the ground in Paris, because we started three days in Paris, then we went on to the three days in Milan. But when my feet touched the ground, I was like, so relieved. I'm like, we are here. Like we made it, and I flew over with a couple of the other ladies in the tour. And it that I mean, yeah, I could go on and on, and I have, you know, my sister said, Oh, what were some of your highlights? I was like, Well, and then half an hour later, I'm still rambling on.

SPEAKER_00

And she was like, Oh my god, get me out of this conversation. Why did I ask?

People Make The Trip Magic

SPEAKER_02

But like from the moment, you know, I was at Melbourne Airport and I bumped into Tony and Marie on the tour. And from that moment, it was just on a high. We were just uh having the best time because you get to share it, you know. As you said before, it's the people that you're with. You get to share it with people, you know, they just get it. We're all having those special moments and sharing them together. So I think that's really, really special.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And I and I think that I guess um, you know, one of the things we sort of want to talk about today is how maybe that's harder to translate across in images, which is actually one of the reasons I did the last post I did on socials, which was just about the people and not about anything else. Because I just felt like, and it's the first time I've really done that because I felt like it was a really big factor this year was the people that we spent time with. Um, and not just, you know, we did have an incredible group of women that we traveled with for our tour. You know, again, we're very, very fortunate. But that all adds to the experience, I think, and the discussion. Like I love the fact that we're there with like-minded people. We can all have different points of view. We don't all like exactly the same things. And you have such great discussion about, you know, what was good, what was maybe not so good, or what didn't work, what worked, what moved you, what bored you. Like it's all relevant, right?

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. And I realize I get so much joy seeing others experience something that I love as well, you know. And I guess just the fact of um that there was a moment when when we landed in Paris and Marie and I we caught an Uber that he didn't speak much English and uh, but he spoke Italian and French, and Marie speaks Italian. So it was just that moment of being in the Uber, hearing her speak in a mixture of Italian and French and back and forth, and just a joyful experience. And I mean, who I who knows who that Uber driver was, but it is those little, little tiny moments, those little conversations. I'm staring out the window past the Pantheon, like just all these iconic monuments, and you just pinch yourself. But it's so nice to share that with someone. And I messaged Marie the other day. I said that was such a great moment, just landing, and we're just thrown into it, and it's just incredible. But I mean, that that's the thing you can't understand on Instagram, and it's the scale of things that you're seeing, it's the atmosphere, the texture. And I think the thing that I notice in Milan every time is the scent, like these apartments that we go into smell divine. I went out the other day to bed, bath, and table. It wasn't quite the same to get my scented stick things. I have them not exactly the same, but I was just like, you pick up little things, you're like, I'm gonna do that when I get home. I'm gonna make my home smell amazing. Yes. And you get that, you get, and the emotional impact that you get, it's really hard to convey that in a carousel post. And I think that, you know, with you with your beautiful post with all of the people, it does start to tell that story a bit, but it's just pure magic.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that there's no way you can obviously capture, and I think you've hit one of the big things uh, and we we did see it last year or notice it and feel it last year, but I felt like even more so this year, like that sort of just engaging all the senses. There was always scent, sound, and not just visual. So you did get kind of a like a specific mood from spaces just because of how they felt when you were in them. So that is quite tricky to convey. And I mean, I'm not the greatest wordsmith as even just to describe, you know, some of these spaces, but yeah, the particularly the private homes, you know, we do, which is, you know, I guess aside to the main events, we do these private tours as part of our um design tour. And those spaces are always just so beautifully presented and so calming and welcoming, you know, like they often put out coffee and pastries, and then there's beautiful candles burning and there's music playing, and it all sets the tone of like kind of who lives there as well. But I feel like that extended this year somehow into some of the installations too.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's um incredible when I look through my photos and I'm so disappointed. I'm like, oh my god, my photos are so bad because um when I was there, it is so incredible um and immersive experience. And I think the first apartment tour that we did in Paris was so incredible. The apartment was absolutely divine. We walked out of that apartment and Tony on the tour, she was so funny. She said, That's it. I don't need any more tour anymore. I've seen that, that's enough. I'm like, that's day one of the morning, just hilarious, but it was so cool.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Like, you know, being in those spaces, and only we will know how that felt, even though we can give you a beautifully polished shot. It's just reduced to a rectangle and a screen in the end. And for from us looking at it again, it just can't like and it's also like that's that three-dimensional thing. You can't capture it because that one shot doesn't capture everything, but also doesn't capture what it feels like to be immersed in that room. And if you try and take a wider lens, it's like it's very distorted. The colours often aren't exactly as you've seen them. But I don't know, it's like the the camera rewards contrast and shape, but real life, I guess that gives you like kind of that welcome, comfort, the atmosphere of the space. So you can never quite, I don't know, convey that, right? So you're never gonna get that on social media, really.

Paris Hospitality And Private Homes

SPEAKER_02

Well, I mean, it's the people that you meet. We keep coming back to that. But the first apartment we went to belongs to Emma Donnesberg. She is an interior designer, she's a gallerist, so she has her own gallery in Paris and she designs furniture, and she is stunning and kind and generous. And I keep saying, I'm keep scratching my head, just thinking, why was everybody so nice to us?

SPEAKER_00

Why I know why you have brought that up a lot, and I'm like, well, why wouldn't they be? We're beautiful, lovely people. No, no, I think we I think there's also maybe, I mean, I I think we're also fairly humble people. And sometimes we forget that we're I think we're quite nice, and sometimes that's just the reciprocant, like you know, reciprocant? Is that that's reciprocated? Yeah, yeah, it's reciprocated like from the other person because you're sort of, I don't know, you're respecting each other. But also I think maybe we have that whole myth of Parisians being rude, and there's not a lot of I think it happens, but we really haven't had that experience. Everyone has been very nice, haven't we?

SPEAKER_02

Everyone has been. I just think that is so wrong, that myth. Every the French the French people, or at least the Parisians, as I could speak on that more, have been nothing but warm, friendly, genuine, welcoming. I just I'm I'm like, this is like the biggest misconception ever. Um they have been amazing.

SPEAKER_00

So I think that's I have I have heard some genuine stories from other people who've told me things that have happened in Paris. And I think sometimes it's because we may get mistaken as Americans. I think I've had to clarify that a couple of times, even in Italy. Somebody said No offense to our American listeners.

SPEAKER_02

No, no, I'm not American, I'm not American.

SPEAKER_00

But um, yeah, so I I I think it happens, but yeah, in our experience of you know, and I've now been going to Paris for the last, I think, four years, and I've yeah, not not had anything but wonderful experiences with Parisians. So we'll talk them up.

SPEAKER_02

The warmest, friendliest people, and um I just think that even in Melbourne, some of our showrooms can take a leaf out of their book in hospitality. I said it.

SPEAKER_00

I am just so like I think that's true in general too. I think Australians are quite hospitable, but there is a different level of hospitality that you get from from European hosts, let's say.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I think they just know how to do it well.

Musée d'Orsay Highs And Relief

SPEAKER_02

They really do. No snobbiness, no snootiness. They welcomed us. I think they must have thought we were millionaires or something. I don't know. How wrong they were. Well, we went to um, I think it was the second day of the tour. We went to the musée d'Orsay and we got to go in before it opened.

SPEAKER_00

That was amazing.

SPEAKER_02

So we went through the staff entry and they were so nice to us.

SPEAKER_00

They were we did feel a bit like celebrities, didn't we? It was like I was dual coming through, you know, just an aside. Totally.

SPEAKER_02

I know it was very cool. And then they posted about us on Instagram and on LinkedIn. And what did they call us? 10 entrepreneurs. I loved it. I felt so I'm like, yes, we are. That was one of those moments though, and it's so cool to be able to share that with a group. Uh after we did we had a tour through there, and the tour lady, the guide, was amazing.

SPEAKER_00

She was fantastic, wasn't she? She was so cool. She was so passionate and easy to listen to. You know, I love it when you get an amazing tour guide that because we've we had a couple of others, I think one one in particular in Italy, where I was going, Oh my god, she's just reading from the script. Yeah. And we're like, mmm, didn't have it was one of the installations. Lady lived and breathed it, didn't she? Yeah, she did. You could ask her any random question. And yeah. And she was really quirky too. Like she told some interesting stories behind some of the artworks. And yeah, she was she was funny. It was very, very enjoyable. It wasn't scary at all. No. Um, and that's the first time I've been there. And I I was like, it was just amazing to experience it. Like, I actually wish I could have stayed, I could have spent, you know, half a day there easily. Some of the best works of art in that space. Yeah. So that was a very special moment. Yeah. And that and we were, we were treated like entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_02

I love it. Um, and that I'm, you know, I'm not really a crier. I'm I'm not really, I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

You keep saying you're not really a crier. I've seen it happen a few times.

SPEAKER_02

I didn't cry though. I didn't I I was like just the I think it was again coming back to that sense of relief, like, oh my god, thank God, like we're actually here, we're doing it. Like we all got here. Thank God it's happening. Like so, so relieved. And I have to give a shout out to Nina, who is our travel agent, extraordinaire, who made it all happen for us. Nina, you are amazing, and we're so, so grateful. She's Nina, an expert at group travel, and we just couldn't have done it without her. Like that's an overstated thing people say, but we literally couldn't have.

SPEAKER_00

So I think having that that I guess someone there as well. Like if anything needs to be changed or just that reassurance that it is all fine. Absolutely. Just having someone that can do that without spending, you know, three hours on a call to the airline and gave us the greatest advice at the beginning of when everything started to sort of turn a little bit um, you know, not so great. And she's the first person we reached out to and just gave us a you know great reassurance and we all made good decisions then and were able to still do.

SPEAKER_02

Saved thousands of dollars thanks to her. Um, but I think yeah, it's that all bottled up all of that relief and all of that somewhat stress beforehand. And then when I was actually It's always a bit stress form. It is, but there was an extra layer, I feel, with all of the stuff going on.

SPEAKER_00

There was, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But then to be in the musée d'Orsay, we went through, we had our the whole museum to ourselves and we came to the end of the tour. And I was chatting with some of the ladies from the the musée dorset, who again was so friendly and warm. I just had a teary moment. Your tears. It was just like, oh my god. And also Paul, who is yes, he's our guy, beautiful Paul in Paris. So his um apartment is on the front cover of my book. So it was just like lovely to see him again. All the emotions, all of that. And again, that's you don't want to see me crying on social media.

SPEAKER_00

You're gonna start crying again.

SPEAKER_02

I'm gonna start crying again now.

SPEAKER_00

The funny thing is that like when you say, like, uh, I'm not a crier, I am a crier. I cry, like I've probably cried three times in the last two days just because I saw something like a doll that's not fine on in a movie or something. Um I am a bit of a crier, and I've had definitely had my moments, but it's just so funny that you're like, I'm not a crier, and I'm like, yeah, but I feel like I can count a few times now.

SPEAKER_02

Well, there was another time where I cried and it was actually becoming an actual sob. Which bit? Oh, it was when we went to the studio Pepe, the intimacy apartments.

SPEAKER_00

That's right, yeah. You two that was because you loved them so much.

SPEAKER_02

I loved it, but it was also the people back to that. It was a couple of four ladies on the two.

SPEAKER_00

So that was getting to that was the day that we were parting with people and we did all get emotional at different times because we do get very attached. It's like we've been thrown together and we spend a lot of time together, but also it's just that everyone's such a beautiful person. We're gonna go on and on. People are gonna be like, why are we listening to this podcast about them going on and on about people we don't know? Um, I guess what we're trying to say is that what is so special about what we do is the people that come together and the connections that are made. And it is quite emotional when you go your separate ways because we've spent all that time together and it's like going through something, you know. So you have this sort of connection that you probably always have.

Scale And The Milan Behind Doors

SPEAKER_02

You're so right. It's going through something and sharing it with someone who loves it as much as you do. It's pretty special. It's pretty rare. Yeah. So I think the other thing that's hard to convey online is a sense of like scale of what we're looking at. If we we go back to design, we'll rein it back into the. And I think one of the ones that I realized was um we saw the Kelly Wesley collection for HM, and there were these sort of puffy kind of like armchairs. Yeah. But when you see them in real life, yeah, they were yeah, like curved boulders. Yeah, you're right. Pebbles kind of fit together. They were very small and very low. I feel like sometimes they were actually quite tiny. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I think the way they were displayed too probably made get gave them a lot more grandness, let's say, because they were stacked. They were never just like one on its own. I actually, props to her of that um installation because it was, you know, it's HM. It's not high design, but we, you know, we have respect. Kelly Worse obviously has done some amazing work, but I think what nailed it really was the way that that was all put together. And she used nearly all the pieces were used in a very sculptural way. So one boulder-like armchair became this kind of pile of boulders, like a small mountain.

SPEAKER_02

It was cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It was cool. Yeah, I actually really enjoyed that. I wasn't sure what to expect with that one just because it's HM. I still have a lot of questions about, you know, the manufacturing and the quality and all of that. This it seemed to be quite good. I think one of the armchairs looked like they were, sorry. The um dining chairs or the you call it a side chair, would you even call that a dining chair? It's pretty small-ish. Um so I'll say side chair looks like it was solid timber. So I don't know. I'd be really I don't I I suspect we won't get those pieces in Australia, but I'm curious to know more about I guess the provenance, which I haven't sort of dove into and I mean that's fair for everything.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, so many pieces that we see in Milan, frankly, are made in China. But absolutely you put a different brand on it and you put a price point on it, and maybe that's a good topic for another day. But um, I just think it's pretty amazing to be able to see an exhibition in Milan in an amazing villa of a piece that you could potentially take home and have in your home. The everyday person.

SPEAKER_00

Maybe at a good price point. I mean, we're gonna assume they're at a reasonable price point because it's HM. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure they'll be higher maybe than usual, just because it's like the, you know, the target collads we've seen. You always pay a bit more than maybe your average target item.

SPEAKER_02

But it's not like a$5,000 arm armchair. No, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So accessible. Yeah. Probably collectible. I think usually those things they don't usually make lots of them and they expect them to sell out.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you'll see them on free selling websites pretty quick. People will be buying up a whole lot of them.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But yeah, I think that is one of the things that is hard to photograph on Instagram, hard to convey. It's that scale. Yes. But also the scale of the buildings as well. Like some of these palazzos, villas, mansions, whatever you call them, like they're huge. And that can be something it's just such an amazing feeling to step inside. You go through this little door on a footpath, you walk into a courtyard, you go up some grand stairs, you go through a door, and it's, oh wow. And how many of those did we have? How many of those experiences? It's it's well, there's a lot, right?

SPEAKER_00

That's where a lot of the spaces uh or installations are held and created. And Milan is known as, you know, Milan isn't sort of this grand city. I kin it to Melbourne if you're talking about Australian cities, where it's like, it's not the prettiest, it's not the grandest, but Milan is known for what's behind doors. So it's very unassuming from the front, like from the facade. And then you walk through doors and into a space and realize it's this amazing, you know, palazzo or villa or whatever it is. It's a very kind of private moments city. It's not kind of in your face, have a look at how amazing this architecture is. It's all about kind of what's behind closed doors and through courtyards. So you do get a real sense of that when you walk into a space. If you've not been in that particular space before, you have no idea what you're going to come across, which is kind of part of the fun. It could be crumbling and old and and that's a whole other thing within itself. But or it could be this ridiculous, uh, you know, palatial space with, you know, triple, quadruple height ceilings and the ceilings, really. Oh, I'm always looking at the ceilings. And the floors. The floors and the walls. Oh, and everything else. Yeah. But yeah, so it is hard to, I guess, capture that the grandness of some of the spaces, you know, just the height and that that feeling of kind of opening up into something that's like quite phenomenal that we don't, I guess, have that experience here either very much.

SPEAKER_02

You don't.

SPEAKER_00

It's like you would already know it's going to be that before you go in, whereas there you don't know what it's going to be until you kind of get inside.

SPEAKER_02

That's a really good point. There was also that amazing apartment that we went to. It was, I'm gonna have to Google it. It's where Albert Einstein lived. Oh. Yeah. It was um in Milan or in Paris. It was in Milan.

SPEAKER_00

I do not know this where Albert Einstein lived.

SPEAKER_02

It was um oh, designed by Osvaldo Borsani. It was that one with that fireplace. Yeah. Yes. And again, he lived in that apartment. Well, apparently so. I know. I I don't know where I read that somewhere. And it was, yeah, very it wasn't grand in terms of the scale, like some of those pullards. It was the detailing and it was just the other.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it was very unusual. I hadn't been in a space kind of of that um level of detail that I hadn't really seen before. Yeah, that particular fireplace moment was really I I don't think I'd ever seen anything like that before.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it's the first time it had been open to the public.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, which was that was amazing. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That was lucky that we got together.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and that's the other, I think that's the other kind of point is that it is about these private spaces often in Milan that you don't know exist until you're in there.

SPEAKER_02

So well preserved. And I think this is the thing. When you see a a photo, an image of a space, you can see the design, you can see the details. But when you're in that space, like it the atmosphere, it just does something to your nervous system. Like you either could have like a sense of awe, which I had that a few times, just the sheer scale, opulence, history, you know, I'm a nerd for all that stuff. You are it's just so it's just amazing, or it could be more of a a feeling of oh, it's that curiosity and it's that uh thinking about oh, what was this space used for? Who might have lived here in the past, and all of these things. And we got to go to the filanchi, how do you say it? I think it's neckie, Vianecchi. Yeah, we I'd never been inside before, and that's one of those iconic residences in Milan that it is steeped in like it's almost a bit mythical because it's been in in films, the Tilda Swinton films, and it's just such an iconic Milanese residence, and then you're inside of it, it's just like, oh, I'm inside.

SPEAKER_00

It's just I know. And and I was just saying to you that I've I don't know, we don't know how many years because I haven't quite worked it out. But let's say in the over 10 years that I've been going to Milan, I've actually never been inside the villa. I've been in the grounds lots of times, like probably every year. But you've always had to kind of book a time to to do a tour. And this time we went to see the Gaganel installation, and they were like, Do you want to go through the villa? And I'm like, um, yes.

SPEAKER_02

That would be a yes. Of course we do. We did scream and we ran and grabbed our ticket and ran inside. Like little girls.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and it was, it was just that's one of those moments, like exactly like you said, where you're going through each space, and and this is you know, this is just a like a more of a tourist thing that we did, less less of a design weight thing, but I guess it's all intertwined of who lived here, and you know, you went through each space, and there was the way they had like the the dual bathroom, so like the mirrored the bathrooms, like for one for the man and one for the woman, and then where their help lived, and like it was all is all quite fascinating, but just really was gorgeous spaces.

SPEAKER_02

And it's again you you walk into the bathroom and it's drenched in marble, and you you can touch, you can feel it's cold, and and then there's personal objects around.

SPEAKER_00

It's very well styled.

Trend Fatigue And The Real Timeline

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so I'm not sure if you've seen it's you might have seen it's a window looking out to a garden and there's a curved green sofa there. That's kind of iconic. Yeah, it's like a sunroom. So if you if you're sort of curious to look that one up. So and I I suppose there is a danger in that a little bit in terms of I've seen that green sofa, I've seen that window. Do you think that sometimes seeing something so much on Instagram, you can kind of get fatigued of it before you've even seen it?

SPEAKER_00

I find this with um, you know, if we're talking about trends, the acceleration of a trend sort of it exists and it doesn't exist. So it exists digitally, so online, because we see so much now instantly. So whether that's Milan Design Week or Catwalk or whatever it is, we see it straight away. We don't have to wait for someone to write about it and publish the images. We get our own impression through the algorithm of whatever's fed to us. So when we talk about trends, you'll feel like sometimes I think when you talk about them, oh, this is going to be in the next X amount of time. A lot of people go, but I feel like I saw that already. I saw it. But the physical product, so if we're talking about brands that have launched things and we're going, oh well, look at this, and it's in this color and it's in this fabric and it was this shape, and they're like, wow, amazing on socials. And then you get back here and you talk to, say, the uh showroom that's going to bring that brand new things in. They might not arrive until the last half, like the last half of next year. They'll be lucky if they're here at the start of next year. Sometimes it'll be a bit later, but some of them won't get here until then. So it's like the trend the moment's not over because it hasn't even properly begun.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_00

That's so true. So that is the kind of weird thing that happens with socials now is it's it's sort of creating a faster trend cycle, but not really, because those things don't just exist, you know, on the rectangle on the screen. They exist in real life. And for them to then be some of these things are prototypes. Some of the stuff we see is emerging designers that maybe a brand sees it and picks that design up and decides to run with it and and manufacture it. And so then they still have to work out how it's made and where it's made and all of that stuff. So you might not see it for minimum 12 months. So there's that kind of weird thing that happens where maybe there is a bit of fatigue around it. But also, do you think people are a bit like fish? We might hold on to it. I find this too. So because I work on trends, I sometimes, by the time that trends kind of, or by the time we're even launching that trend. So, you know, for instance, we worked on a the dualux forecast. By the time I was talking about it and presenting it, I would be like, Oh, I feel like this is old news. But it wasn't old news, it was just old news to me because I'd spent so much time looking at it and been quite focused on it. So maybe there's a level of, you know, design aficionados who maybe get fatigued by it, but then they also kind of understand how things work. But I think the average like consumer or someone that's just kind of like going, oh, this is sort of nice, but not maybe kind of that attached to it might definitely forget about it a little bit until they see it again in real life.

SPEAKER_02

Maybe. Well, I agree. And also when you see something for the first time, sometimes you can be like, that looks weird. I don't like that. Yes. So I think about perhaps the puffy lounge by Faye Too Good. You know the one where it's kind of like a duna almost draped over.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so not the new butter one, the one before that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's from a few years ago. I think it was.

SPEAKER_00

Oh well. It was called Puffy.

SPEAKER_02

And then there's the Rolly Poly as well. It's got the four fat legs and the scoop sort of.

SPEAKER_00

Oh I I love the Rolly Poly.

SPEAKER_02

I love it. But you see it for the first time, you're like, that's weird. Then you see it the second time, you're like, hmm, third time, fourth time, seventh time, I love that chair. So, you know, it's that the trends bell curve, like the the uh you're right at the beginning of that trend cycle, you can see that, and it's when it's approved by media, social media, or somebody from a magazine that says it's good, then you kind of come around to it and you're like, this is pretty cool. And then, yeah, but it doesn't, it takes a long time. And also, we saw this gorgeous new sofa at Muto. Muto are launching a sofa, and it's like a modular sofa, it's kind of like a big fat sort of vertical rib design, and it can it's modular, you can curve it, you can have separate armchairs, etc. etc. That doesn't go into production until September, let alone we receive it in Australia.

SPEAKER_00

That's right. I think the ones we saw, so we saw that at in the Muto apartment, but we also saw it at Studio Pepe, and they were both kind of prototypes. Yeah. Because it was Studio Pepe's design. They did a collaboration with Muto. That's their their sofa. But yeah, exactly, exactly that. So I think there's longevity as well as fleetingness. I think there's both things existing kind of at the same time. And I think you're a hundred percent right. Sometimes things kind of need to sink in, and I for me, it's often like love straight away or not sure how I feel about that, and then it grows on you. A bit like, I don't know, listening to a new Taylor Swift album or something.

SPEAKER_02

But um what do you what do you think of Charlie XEX? We'll talk about that later.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I haven't listened yet. Anyway, sorry, yeah, that's an offline one. Um, yeah, so I feel like I haven't been living in the real world lately. So I'm like a bit out of touch with my normal social touch points. God Bree. God, come on. I know what's wrong with me, especially music. Uh yeah, so yeah, but sometimes you things grow on you, and other times I see things and I know straight away that's a winner or that's a hit, or it just like connects, or and that could be a colour combination or a fabric or the way something's been detailed. Yeah, but I I think you're right, sometimes things make you feel a little uncomfortable. And so you need to kind of like like it's here, see this again, look at it again now. How are you feeling about it now? And so, yeah, and also context. So, you know, you can see, I think the Kelly Wursa one's probably a good example. We talk about that again. There was no real room. Oh, it was maybe one space that was sort of semi like a real room. They were all kind of sculptural installations and nothing was real. So it's when you take that piece and see it in a real home is sometimes the moment where you go, ah, I think that's great. I love the way that's been, you know, styled there, or I love the way it's been used in that room. So you sometimes you don't get that from Milan. Sometimes you do, which is actually some of my favorites are like the studio Pepe apartment, the intimacy that you could just walk in and live there. I know you could have had to drag you out again. But some of the spaces are like that, and they're some of my favorites. And and Muto was like that, where they kind of create real spaces that they're styled, obviously, but you could imagine it being a real space. I think they're some of my favorite moments in Milan are those uh real kind of spaces, I suppose.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, I am with you on that. Walking into an apartment, whether or not it's a real apartment someone lives in or not, I love those spaces. And I think this is the thing. There is something for everyone in Milan. Some people will say that was the worst thing that they've seen. And they they loved seeing McDonald's ball pit. I don't know if anyone actually loved seeing that. But you know, people, some people are there for McDonald's were there, weren't they?

SPEAKER_00

I forgot. Yeah, I didn't I didn't actually know they were there until it was all over.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I mean, to be um maybe something a bit more real would be ASOC. You know, that got a really great review from what I could hear people saying. They said they loved it, they experienced it. I have zero need to go and look at hand soap. Zero. That's just not what I'm in there for. I want to see furniture.

SPEAKER_00

And there will there was not furniture. No, there was no furniture. There was lights, but I I did go into ASOP. But I there's years where I haven't done it and people have raved about enough and I've been the same as you. I've been, yeah, but what am I gonna get from that? I really don't need to see it, unless because it's usually about a brand experience. They're very good at kind of activating their brand in a real space. I think they're actually quite clever at that generally. So this one was very similar, so it was kind of based a lot around sort of ritual and the maker. So they I think they're launching some lighting. I could be wrong about that. Um, but it's to do with uh using the the bottles and the glass from that um and create so they had these beautiful videos, so I should say you you walk in and there is hand soap. The first thing you do is you stand in a line at a trough and and they pump the hand soap in and then you wash your hands and then you rinse them and they dry them for you, and they, I don't know, put a little nice smelling lotion on there or something. So that's the first bit. And I was with a a group of people, there were some interesting comments around around that experience. But I get that that's that's how they charge the physical thing that they sell back to the brand experience. So that was immediate. So you knew where you were, you knew what the brand was. So I thought that was actually you know a nice way to do it. And it's not a bad thing to, you know, have a nice hand washing moment. Let's face it, one of the things that people don't talk about is there's not a lot of toilets in Malaysia.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Try taking a grizzly Ted Women's public toilet pit stop five hours later.

SPEAKER_00

So you have to know where there are toilets that you can use because, yes, of course, there's toilets in some of these spaces, but they're not going to let you just wander into them because otherwise 50 other people are also using that one toilet. So that's a side note. So it is a kind of nice thing to get your hands washed.

SPEAKER_02

You've been on the metro, you've been touching furniture.

SPEAKER_00

Um, and then you walk through and there's videos of you know, they're in Murano do doing the Murano glass for these lights and everything. So there's a story to tell. So I I appreciated it from that perspective, but I also get that you should know why you're in Milan. And we've had this discussion about, you know, when we talk talk again about some negativity around big brands doing installations. I mean, McDonald's, we could absolutely who wants them there? I don't know. That's just for the average consumer that happens to be wandering through on the Saturday and realizes they're at design week, I think. But um, I think that sometimes there's relevance in these brands taking part. I mean, ASOP is not a furniture brand, but they are a brand, I think, to be a good idea. Designer adjacent to design.

SPEAKER_02

And and uh, you know what, I'm all for it. Like it sounds like it was a great experience. It's just not for me. And that's okay. It's you're allowed to everyone's allowed to experience it in the way they want to. And if you want to go to McDonald's and do that, like go for it.

SPEAKER_00

I just hope you're you want to go all the way to Italy, like 24 hours it'll take you to get there, and you'll be pretty uh sh disheveled by the time you get there, unless you're flying, you know, first class or something. And even then you might still be a little disheveled.

SPEAKER_02

I don't I don't hold it against anyone if they've gone to that or enjoyed it, like you do you.

SPEAKER_00

And no, I might I'd sorry against you if you went there for McDonald's. I will hold that against you.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But I guess another good example. You don't have to go is IKEA. Yeah. You know, they they don't always I've been to IKEA kind of, I don't know, every second year, let's say I don't go every year. I usually try and assess whether it's worth going. This year was apparently great. I didn't go, but I read a lot about it and heard people talk to me about that. It was a good experience and it was relevant. So sometimes I find they're just not that relevant. And I I've been and gone, uh, it's not so like the year um Pay2 Good was involved, that year was brilliant. And I think they might have even been part of Alcova that year. But you know, it's hit and miss, and you've got to be able to, I think what I was trying to say is um, why are you there and what do you want to see? And not everyone knows that, especially the first time that they go. And it's hard for us too, you know, when I put together our groups itinerary, I'm trying to cover kind of a broad base of things and brands that I know usually are a great experience. But if you're there to shop specific furniture and know ex, you know, make contacts with all the brand people, then you know, you need to be at the fair and spend a lot of time there and have appointments on stands and and be a lot more kind of pragmatic about what you want to do. But you might be there for those brand experiences. You know, they're not not everyone's an interior designer. There's people who work in marketing and can take so much away from doing the ASOP installation.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely, that is not wrong. They can do, you can do Milan however you want. Maybe a brand, a hardware brand or a stone brand have invited you to come out, love that for you. Maybe you want to go over and capture some amazing content. Go for it, do what you want to do. There's no right and wrong, but there is such a variety, and I think you just nailed it when you said you just got to know what you want to get out of it. Because if you find yourself in the McDonald's stand and you're like, what am I doing here? Then you maybe could have done a bit of planning beforehand.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I think planning is key. Having said that though, I I know quite like at least a handful of people that were there this year that sort of went, I don't really have a plan. And a lot of the time, obviously, they went with the flow of like someone went, oh, we're going to here, come along. And then, yeah, sure. And then they still had a great experience. I'm a planner, as you know. I think you are as well. I like to, even if I don't follow a plan, I need to have one. I'm just one of those people who otherwise I procrastinate. So I need to just know, here's the plan. You can divert from it. And you should be flexible because I think one of the biggest things, and this is relevant to that whole Instagram versus reality, is yes, people are getting a lot of content from Milan. It's always been that way. And yes, maybe it's gotten a lot more intense. But you might go all the way, you might go, ah, instead of going to this that we had planned, that you kind of know is going to probably be good, you've seen this one thing on Instagram that looked amazing. And you cancel that and you go out of your way somewhere else and turn up there and you realize it's just one great shot. There's just one great moment in this whole space. You've gone all the way there. And actually it's it's just a social media moment. And that's unless you're going there literally going, I can't not have that shot. I need that shot for my Instagram, then it's sort of a waste of your time. So you've got to really be able to try and, I don't know, just suffer what you see on social media and not have the FOMO. That's the other one, not having the photo.

The Wrong Address Adventure

SPEAKER_02

I've got FOMO. I still have it. And I mean, I don't want to have to bring this up, but I am still beating myself up about it. We had a beautiful couple of hours left on a gorgeous sunny day, beautiful afternoon. I got an invitation to an apartment. I somehow got this invitation and she the lady wrote it down on a piece of paper. So there I go, Google Maps, put it in my phone. All right, Brie, let's go. We dragged on another gorgeous designer, Mel, who came. I feel so.

SPEAKER_00

I would say that I did change my plans as well. I was saying one. There were multiple things we could do. We had a we had a whole conversation. Multiple, many, many No, I really think you know an apartment. And to be fair, you went, You don't have to come. I'm gonna do this and I went, No, no, all right, let's do this now. I'm coming with you.

SPEAKER_02

It was a yeah, a private apartment. These cool designers, they live there and it looked gorgeous. Cool. So we're like catching a train, catching a tram walking down a street. We're near the airport. Did you find out?

SPEAKER_00

But then someone's doing a place as part of the cool vibe, abandoned building.

SPEAKER_02

Like, that's cool. That would be that would go off in Melbourne. We say proper abandoned building to get that one on the club. And then we find ourselves standing at the front of a storage facility that's in not really funny.

SPEAKER_00

I normally navigate and I was fighting in my head because I must be, I realized, I realized in these moments I was a little bit controlling on the Google Maps and that I usually am the Google Map girl. And I was in my head going, don't be ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02

Lauren, just relax, Lauren. Yeah. I typed in the wrong address. Oh my god. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00

So in the moment we realized because we were confused.

SPEAKER_02

No, we were, we were like, oh my god, let me check the address. No, it was like a few letters in the second word of the name of the street. It was pretty close. You could cite it, it looked very similar. It was different, and it was on a different side of town.

SPEAKER_00

So I should have spoken up earlier when I was kind of seeing where we were going. But honestly, sometimes places are in weird suburbs, residential apartments. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Anyway, it was not it was an adventure. It was, yeah. We were like, we should get a photo, but none of us were like really in the fun kind of mood to get a photo.

SPEAKER_00

But I felt so bad for Mel because she's like, oh, these girls know what they're doing. So back. Um well I have to leave now and go to this other thing. And we're like, yeah, sorry. Oh sorry.

SPEAKER_02

It's like an hour and a half of your life, you'll never get back.

SPEAKER_00

Sorry. Anyway, okay. You can only live on one day. You need to let that one go now. Yeah. Put it out in the world. You can let it go. Okay.

Travel That Changes How You Design

SPEAKER_02

Let's move on to I'll bring it up when we're talking. Um, which is I think how travel can change your taste. And I think it has to do with like seeing how people live differently in other parts of the world. And I mean, number one, you know, in Australia, we're very much about the house with the backyard, the detached house. You get to see in Europe, in Milan, in Paris, how people live in apartments. It's not an option, it's just the norm. And but it's also the approach to just, I mean, we went back to, we talked about it before. It's the the hospitality, what that means to invite someone in your home, or maybe 10 people. We all come marching in. It's seeing those historical references, like in context, it's just different. And it just expands on how you can live. And if any of those ideas you could maybe apply into your own home as well.

SPEAKER_00

I agree. And also Milan, I mean, obviously you're traveling to Italy, um, and that is a specific historical references and all of those things. But in Design Week, you've got, I think it was like 167 countries, is you know, the breadth of people that are there. And then obviously you've got brands from different countries, not just from Italy. You have whole pavilions of, you know, the Dutch and their designers. I think it was uh Ubekistan. I'm probably saying that incorrectly. Polish. Yeah. So like it's there's other cultures coming together. So even though, you know, obviously travel, you can you can see all of those things. It's great when you also then go to particular brand or installation from another country and they're bringing their culture into whatever they're, I guess, trying to say in that installation or with the design. And it's great to have those conversations with the designers when you're there and listen to them talk about what influenced it. And yeah, so you're kind of getting bonus countries.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's so true. And the materials that they have access to could be different to the materials that we have.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, a hundred percent. The lights different, materials are different. In fact, that's you know, I love seeing the fact that you know, when we talk about sustainability, we often talk about local. So you should be seeing what materials they have access to and why that's important to that culture or that country or that designer because that's what they're surrounded by, or what's in abundance in that space or in that country. So yeah, it's always interesting, I find, to see all of that as well.

SPEAKER_02

What I liked was um we when we visited Paul's apartment, something that he said, I think you have a quite a grand living room, and then off that you have a slightly smaller dining room, then you have a bedroom, and then off the hallway, you've got a tiny kitchen and an absolutely minuscule bathroom. And it's um I mean his apartment is a pre-house median apartment, so it's from I don't know, 1830 or something like that before that. I'm not sure. But he said that the spaces, the size of the space corresponds to the amount of time that you spend in it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I thought that was a really interesting take on planning a space.

SPEAKER_00

I think it's really uh something we've probably touched on a lot of times about, you know, open plan and and some of these sort of grand homes that we see and the relevance of that. And I think that is actually like a really good way to justify spaces when you're re-looking at them or redecorating or you know, renovating is how much time like, okay, you've got this idea that it needs to be this giant kitchen, even if you don't cook. Like, so like, you know, actually designing for the way you live becomes so important, not the way you think you should live. If that makes sense.

The Best Moments Are Unplanned

SPEAKER_02

It's just just makes you think, doesn't it, outside what is normal kind of here. What about those harder ones are those accidental moments that become the most important ones? And one of them that I remember is we were at Salone. So that is the huge big fair. It's just you cannot get your head around. It's like those walk travel later things. There's like about 10 of them all along. We went right to the back, of course. And then there's a billion people there, and we all had our, we had a look around, did what we wanted to do. And then at six o'clock, it is a mass evacuation, and there's just teams of people heading in the one direction to the train station. And we were that was the last day of our tour, wasn't it? Yes, yeah, it was the last day. Yeah. Yeah. We were zapped, we were exhausted, we could not anymore. And then we just thought, let's go and get a drink. And we just sat at an outdoor cafe, like a kiosk kind of place, sat under some trees in the sun, had our apparel spritz together. Was not a fancy place, but it was just such a nice moment, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. And and it is those unplanned moments. I mean, the other one, I guess, that we had outside of the tour was literally on our last night in Milan. We had a dinner planned and I had we had a book to the small group of people. And then we just kind of collected people along the way. Yeah. And ended up with a table, I reckon there was 10 in the end, maybe offhand, in this great authentic Italian restaurant in Brera, where there ended up being a band, like just a one guy. One guy, you know, on the piano singing. And then there were other tables, other bigger kind of tables with people who are obviously here probably also for design week, but it looked like maybe they were tap brands or yeah, or manufacturers or whatever, so like not necessarily designers who are all being quite rowdy and singing. And it just ended up being one of these crazy great nights where it was just so joyful, it was very authentic, the food was amazing. Yeah. So, like, yeah, it is it is often those moments that are unplanned. Oh, that was amazing. Ended up being the good ones.

SPEAKER_02

That was I can't explain, but I I to get there, I just missed a tram by like a moment. So I had to wait so long for the next one. I could have literally walked there. So I got there and I was like in a bad mood. I was like tired.

SPEAKER_00

It was like at the end. I don't think I was going home in the morning. I was I was actually thinking you were gonna not calm in the end.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, I'd waited that long for the tram. I was like, I'm I'm not giving up. I've waited, I've invested all this time, I'm waiting for it. And then I got there and it was, yeah, this restaurant, and it was downstairs, and I saw all you guys there laughing and just like a really good atmosphere. And then when this guy started playing piano with this like a moustache, I think he had a hat on and glasses, and he's obviously singing a crowd pleaser, some Italian song that everyone must know because the waiters were singing, the tables were singing, as you said, and it was just like, oh my god, it lifted me out of my bad mood instantly. And I had Carbonara because I was like, I try to make this at home. What should it really taste like? It was so amazing, and it was just such a great atmosphere. So yeah, that was just the best, the best last night you could drink for. Yeah, they were gorgeous, all your friends there. And so what else should we touch on?

Queues And How To Beat Them

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think we've I think we've already hit on all the FOMO and all of that that we were going to discuss. I think I feel like we've covered covered a lot of the things that happen. Um, we haven't talked about the cues, they exist. Come on the tour if you want to skip them. Yeah, so I I look, I get it. The Q the Qs are a the cues are a thing. They're if you want to go to the most popular exhibits, you will have to stand in a queue. I advise. So we we only do three days of Milan with the tour. We pack a lot into those three days, but then I provide an itinerary and you know, then if you're hanging around, some people do and some people leave and go off to coma or or onto greener pastures. But if you're going to and you really want to see a particularly popular exhibit that we haven't covered, I recommend just making that your first one. You get there really early, you get as close to the front of the line as you can and you go through. The benefit of the cues, which is what people don't talk about, is that because some of these places are very crowded, without the cues, you wouldn't see anything when you were inside. So the reason they exist is they're letting a certain amount of people through at a time so that when you're in that space, you can actually enjoy the space, see the things, hopefully get some photos and things of if that's what you're there for, because otherwise it would just be overrun with people. So I kind of understand why the cues exist. I get that Milan Design Week has become really a hot commodity and everyone and man and his dog wants to be there. But it is the reality of having a popular event. There's lots of events though, so you can skip a lot of those ones and still see places that, you know, where the cues move quite quickly. I also found that this year they were long queues, but I saw them moving really fast. I don't know. I'm sure there's accounts of people standing in queues for, you know, two hours to get into places. But I I generally heard fairly good feedback from the places where people did have to stand in a queue to get in. So I don't know about you.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I think as as you say, this is a reality of Milan Design Week. There's no point in saying, well, back when I did it, it was better. It's not like that anymore. So what are we gonna do?

SPEAKER_00

It is what it is. Everything evolves. Absolutely. The fact that, you know, there's people being uh, I guess, creating content and talking about it all these years is this is what happens. There's a much greater awareness. People can see that it's a a place to go that gives you so much inspiration and energy, and you can see so many things. You can never see everything, which is why I say, like, you know, maybe don't go to all the main ones that have two-hour queues. Break it up and see some of the smaller places where you're gonna still get great experiences, but you just don't need to stand in the queue for two hours. I don't know.

Chance Meetings And Design Highlights

SPEAKER_02

And honestly, it hits you in the face. You walk down in the middle of Brera, you're gonna see cool stuff that you don't have to queue for. I I saw a chart. Absolutely. We were we were walking down the street, and a bunch of us were like, look at that cool chair. We stopped in a shroom, had a look, took a few photos. I'm like obsessed with that chair. Happy accident. Also, I had a really amazing chance encounter with some designers that I have loved for a really long time. They're called uh Yabu Pushelberg, and they're based in Canada, and they're Glenn and George, and I just recognize them because they stand out, recognize them from a mile away. And I um they took me by the hand. I was I was actually kidnapped, wasn't I, Bray? You were like, Where is she? I was abducted.

SPEAKER_00

Where the hell did you go?

SPEAKER_02

I know, I was just banished. I was abducted and I was taken to the polyform palazzo. So, yes, I don't even know if there was a cue for that um polyform exhibition because it was kind of like an invite-only thing because it was a palazzo. Amazing inside, incredible space with gold on the walls and a made amazing ceiling murals. But I also got to see their new release. So um Yabu Pushelberg released it's sort of like a bed/slash architecture, in that you've got the bed and you've got a bed head, and on the other side is um some seating. So that was a highlight to see that piece. Um, but yeah, it was just the generosity that totally blew me away.

SPEAKER_00

Uh so yeah, so that's our I guess wrap-up of our experience in Milan this year, which was pretty fabulous.

SPEAKER_02

It was just the most incredible time, wasn't it?

Tour Waitlist And Wrap-Up

SPEAKER_00

Overall amazingly positive for me. Um uh we are doing the tour again next year, and we would uh love for you to join us. So if you would like to be the first one to know about all of the dates and when we're when we're going and all of the things and be considered, um pop your name down either through our Instagram channels or you can jump on to our emails. We'll have all the details as well in the show notes so you can jump in there and um send us your details and we will pop you on the wait list. Once we release all the details, we'll open up applications and we would love for you to apply and we would love for you to be there. I think that um, you know, last time, or the last two times really, but particularly last time, the places were snapped up pretty quickly, and we will announce them fairly early this time. Um, yeah, so jump in and hopefully we'll see you there. And yes, we'd love to hear from you if you want to come. And I hope you enjoyed our wrap-up of Milan, and we will see you next time. Thanks for joining us.

Acknowledgement Of Country

SPEAKER_02

Thanks, Brie. See you next week. We've got the utmost respect for the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. They're the OG custodians of this unceded land and its waters, where we set up shop, create, and call home and come to you from this podcast today. A big shout out to all of the amazing elders who have walked before us, those leading the way in the present, and the emerging leaders who will carry the torch into the future. We're just lucky to be on this journey together.