// CURATED BY STEFANO FADDA ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, IN PARTNERSHIP WITH SGS ARCHITETTI ASSOCIATI
MILAN, SEPTEMBER 8th-10th, 2015
FIERAMILANOCITY, PORTA TEODORICO

Last April Milano Unica launched the textile trend area… And now, a welcome surprise, confirming the perceptive powers of the exhibitors who embraced and interpreted the trend-forward ideas, offering new combinations of colors, materials and textiles.

Stefano Fadda – artistic director – is the mastermind behind the tale. He and SGS Architetti Associati came up with the idea for the Trend Area, an innovation lab, a hotbed of ideas that best represents the moods of the Fall/Winter 2016 2017 season from which to draw inspiration.
The Trend Area – in Pavilion 4 - deliberately took a new approach. Retracing the exhibition concept designed for the trend launch event in April, a sensory journey was mapped out with four clearly identifiable moods where natural landscapes alternate with displays of (sometimes unexpected) fabrics and materials. An open area where exhibitors and industry professionals can move about freely, stop, take a closer look, touch, and weigh the options…

The Arctic Tale, where hills of salt elicit an imaginary world with a sublime atmosphere and frosty colors, hosts the light, warm colors from candid whites to super-pastels mixed with watery tints and anthracite inserts as if they were mirrors of ice. The fabrics are fluffy: wool, down, filling, furry ribbons, ice flowers…
Folk Land features a landscape charted in earthy tones, with layers of materials and wood elements that call to mind Nature and scenic landscapes. Complex materials rise to the occasion – mixed yarns, fringe inserts and especially jacquard – all distinguished by an ultra-soft hand and warm, earth-inspired hues.
The Graphic Wave, where square tubular structures and two-dimensional floor and wall decorations fashion a space demarcated by a bold black and white color scheme; playful geometrics and interwoven lines recall the digital age and its new technologies. The fashion focus here is on select interpretations of mesh, plaids, checks, revisited with a modern, metropolitan eye and set off by slices of color like deep-web inspired cyan cityscapes.
The Play Room, where balls in primary colors, strung on a transparent line, create a multi-color optical effect reminiscent of vintage wooden toys and re-define play not only as an activity but also as a state of mind. Blocks of color in decidedly bold hues, contrasts between boiled wool, Lenci cloth and vinyl or double layered materials weave the theme of this mood.

In this edition, accessories are every bit as important as the fabrics themselves, so a decision was made to integrate them along the journey pathway. Indeed, specific sections based on the colors in which the accessories are arranged can be found in each area. And, to complement some of the themes, would not have been complete without ribbons and furs among the fabrics.

//MULINO A VINO
New York, USA

September 2015

We are glad to share the success achieved by Mulino a Vino NYC, Italian restaurant designed by SGS, being reviewed in this flattering article by the The New Yorker magazine.

Usually, when a waiter offers to “take you through the menu,” it’s to explain something that doesn’t need explaining. Like family style. Or small plates. But Mulino a Vino is actually complicated, beginning with the name, which is an Italian pun. (Mulino a vento is a windmill, and the place runs on wine.) Ordering involves mastering the menu’s taxonomy of food and wine (“Bright & Lively,” “Big & Luscious”), and, within each category, a shaded spectrum measuring intensity of flavor. Each dish is available in three sizes. You may wind up creating your own gradation, from madcap (spiced truffle popcorn) to misguided (anise-and-red-pepper-spiked ice cream). The restaurant’s founding chef, Davide Scabin, is best known for encasing an egg yolk and caviar in a bubble of plastic wrap, at his avant-garde restaurant Combal.Zero, in Piedmont. Though the dishes at Mulino a Vino tend toward the creative end of Italian—cacio e pepe ravioli, wasabi mayo on the salmon confit—there is nothing quite as adventurous as a plastic-wrapped egg. Nor does there seem to be much sign of Scabin, who has gone back to Italy. Buy-in to his scheme varies among the waitstaff. What’s your favorite thing here, one was asked. He thought for a bit. “Victoria’s Secret models come in sometimes.” They drink a lot, he said, and at the end of the night they hug everyone. Looking around, the scene was hard to imagine. The dungeon-like space, gloomy and gilded, like Christian Grey’s guest room, was full of bowed heads—guests deciphering their menus in the dim light. In the corner, a man explained the concept of gravity to his date. Later, in what must have been a Verdicchio-fuelled pique, she asked him if he was a mommy’s boy. The waiter who mentioned the models could tell that the couple on the date were in need; he poured them what he described as a surefire lady pleaser, a Montepulciano with a pink pony on the label. Everyone at the restaurant had their wine brought out on a special tray and strained through a cheesecloth, even if they weren’t buying the most expensive bottle, which cost four hundred and eighty dollars. (The big spenders never tip, the waiter told another diner.) Is it any surprise that the food can get lost in the mix, with so much going on? Many dishes suffer from one ingredient too many—usually black truffle or Gorgonzola, or sometimes both. As in life, it’s best to follow Mamma: the tennis-ball-size meatball is her recipe, and it sits in a bath of tomato sauce the color of persimmons. The three-meat blend is so juicy that it barely needs any sauce. There are plenty more well-handled tomatoes, and a bunch of homemade pastas that are the right kind of chewy. They’re all in different categories of the menu, but each one’s a lady pleaser.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/09/21/tables-for-two-mulino-a-vino