2. It's all happening in Milano
Plus some of the unhinged things occurring around the world and how to throw an adult pizza party.
Ciao Tutti! It's Milan Design Week and the activations, parties, and new releases are rolling in. Flipping through this list of anticipated installations and reading the locations has filled me with all sorts of nostalgia from my time studying abroad there.
I was in Milan for Salone del Mobile during my studies (nearly 15 years ago!) and it felt more like it was for industry insiders. It's fascinating to see how commercial its become. Certainly more "insider-y" than Miami Art Basel, for example, but with the globalization the internet brings and the affordability of air travel nothing is really only for industry insiders anymore. Brands know that and its interesting to see which choose to do activations for the public and which are still throwing private parties.
Some notable happenings:
Belmond (owner of Hotel Cipriani in Venice) has released their third book of Italian cooking and "wanderings." Do we really need another Italian cook book? I would argue no. But it is stylish and Italian food is popular for a reason. There is a press preview for the book today in Milan. They took over one of the iconic Milanese street kiosks.
Sad to be missing what is sure to be a super chic party from our friends at Dada Goldberg (s/o Marianne). The party celebrates In Common With's collaboration with artist Sophie Lou Jacobsen called Flora. Is there more enticing, yet to the point copywriting than: "Drinks and dancing. One night only."? You can see what all of Dada's clients are doing at Design Week here.
Marimekko is teaming up with Laila Gohar to serve up some very aesthetic breakfast in bed at Teatro Litta. They promise joyful colors, Maija Isola’s stripes and a few surprises. You can find it April 7–13.
Of course, the more mainstream players will be playing. Louis Vuitton opened a new Milan store location last week, with a restaurant just ahead of Design Week. The restaurant is called The DaV by Da Vittorio Louis Vuitton. Diners go through the store during the day but can use an evening entrance on Via Bagutta. There are 48 seats in total, laid out across two floors. With all the amazing food in Milan, I don’t think I’ll be eating there, but to each their own!
Vogue posits that though other global design weeks are rising up, Milan's remains the most prestigious and so we'll see all the big luxury brands in full force. Louis Vuitton has two events, Gucci is unveiling an exhibition titled 'Bamboo Encounters,' Prada will present the fourth edition of its annual symposium 'Prada Frames.'
Vogue Italia will host ‘Shopology: A brief history of fashion retail’, an exhibition and talk series exploring the relationship between shopping and design from April 9 to 11.
Today’s letter includes: A live report from the Maude Latour concert at Brooklyn Steel, why manufacturing can’t just come back to the U.S., praise for Carrie Coon, and 8 things to talk about at parties.
Warning - there's a lot of political news this round because wow, so much is happening. Being an informed citizen makes you a better party guest. :)
The tariff memes ARE funny. My feed has been brimming with jokes about the tariffs, specifically about penguins. But underneath the jokes, there are very real consequences for us as consumers. The United States simply doesn't have the infrastructure to manufacture stuff. For the cozy girls who have never thought about a supply chain in their lives, @CharlotteParler made a great video that explains what it means and how she couldn’t get her own beauty products manufactured in the U.S.
Is it ok to like Alison Roman again? Because I find her funny and her recipes are good. Anyways, she interviews long time Vanity Fair journalist Josh Duboff who now wrote a fiction novel called Early Thirties. They talk about how your early thirties are a specific time and very different from your late thirties. Today, early thirties simply don't mean the same thing as they did in our parent's time - most would have had a few kids and a mortgage. They don't really explore the concept in any great depth in the article besides identifying it, but perhaps the book itself will be worth a read if this is a dichotomy that interests you.
French right-wing leader Marine Le Pen was found guilty of embezzling European Union funds. Now she's been banned from running for political office for five years. Wow! What a big day for gender equality - ladies can embezzle too! Also … only 5 years?
The charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams have been dismissed. The judge on the case decided to follow the DOJ's request to drop the charges against Adams - something the DOJ was doing in an attempt to control Adams and make him cooperate with the Trump mandates (which Adams was more than willing to do). The judge did reject the Justice Department’s request to be able to refile the charges after the mayoral election, which would leave “a prospect that hangs like the proverbial Sword of Damocles over the accused.” This at least leaves Adams free to not listen to Trump without fear of being prosecuted again, but we also just let him do bad things with no consequences. At least he won’t run again …. oh wait.
Cory Booker did a filibuster. Ok it wasn't technically a filibuster but it did break the modern record for longest speech from Senate floor. It’s giving dance marathon vibes.
There's a cute new bar on Fulton Street. It's called Casanara and I went to check it out with my friend Caroline. The atmosphere is great, the drinks are good, and Caroline, who can sniff out a dance situation from a mile away, suspects on a weekend it could get vibey!
Gen X is having better sex than you. According to Vox's Jonquilyn Hill, Gen X women (ages 45-60) are the only generation not in a sex recession. Why?
More couples are getting divorced after the age of 50 than ever before, allowing post divorce exploration for women.
The way we talk about consent and female pleasure has changed drastically since the 90's.
Middle aged women and female sexuality in pop culture and tv are portrayed way differently than they used to be.
If you consume a lot of media (*raises hand*) it's definitely noticeable. It's giving that scene from White Lotus where Belinda says to Pornchai: "I consent! Do you do that here in Thailand?" and then sheepishly adds, "we just started."
Another on the nose, real-life example: the TV adaptation of the podcast 'Dying for Sex' stars Michelle Williams and is based on the true story of Molly Kochan, a woman who received a Stage IV cancer diagnosis and decided to leave her husband of 15 years to explore her sexuality. The series dropped on April 4th. I've listed to the podcast in its entirety and it's great. The show is off to a strong start from the 2 episodes I’ve watched.
The people of Greenland literally refused to meet the Vances. I'm sort of impressed with the people of Greenland's ability to just SHUT IT DOWN. Vice President JD Vance and his wife planned a visit to Greenland without an invitation and Greenland felt that it was "aggressive." One headline reads: "U.S. officials went door-to-door in Greenland to find anyone who wanted to be visited by the Vances. They found no one." Brutal.
I guess Usha was originally planning to go to the world's largest dog sledding event, but every town and event they announced they would go to kept having protests planned so they just scrapped the whole thing. The entire trip ended up being only 3 hours, with the only site visited a U.S. operated base. Not sure the 3 hours was worth the 7 hour flight there and back.
I had an adult Pizza Party and it was pretty fun and low-stress. We did it on a Sunday, so that's how you know it is chill.
The most labor intensive part is making all the dough in advance. That took me ~3 days. I made two batches of this active sourdough recipe and one faster version with sourdough discard. I can't say my guests really noticed the differences between the doughs, but I'm sure if we had tried harder we would have thought the active sourdough recipe was better because it was more difficult and took more time and that's science for "more complex flavor." Also I am not above store-bought pizza dough at all. Not everyone has time to be a trad wife!
We made some in the oven and some on the grill. You really get that nice crispy bottom on the grill. We all agreed the grill pizza was the one.
Steal my menu:
10 pizzas
Chopped kale Caesar Salad
Grilled Summer Squash
Cheese board
Batch Aperol Negronis
Some tips:
You need a pizza stone - period. You can do it without it (I did for many years) but if you're gonna have a party about it, just get the $17 stone. I have this one.
Chop the kale in a food processor. I'm obsessed with food processor kale - the texture and mouth feel is divine. Is it just me?
The vegan Trader Joe's Caesar Dressing is really good and makes your salad making process very fast.
You can really only make one pizza at a time, so have snacks (I went cheese board) for grazing in between pies.
It's fun to have an "activity" after pizza since you, as the host, are firing up pies the whole time and haven't properly gotten to sit down with guests. We did a little bonfire on our terrace.
Listening
I have a real soft spot for well-written and executed pop music. So mostly that.
I went to the Maude Latour concert at Brooklyn Steel and it was a great show. A lot of the songs from her new album that I was "meh" on were very cool live. I love how pop artists adapt their sound for a live show - the basis of all of her songs almost felt like heavy metal songs live and it really worked.
New York City is a main character in a lot of Maude's work, so the song Comedown was especially fun live. Thankfully she did play some old songs, including her pandemic hit Superfruit.
Watching
Prestige TV is my love language.
So how about that finale of White Lotus! Don't worry, no spoilers here. 🤫 I'll just say that Carrie Coon is underrated as an actress and delivers a great monologue. It is trippy to watch her in White Lotus and The Gilded Age at the same time - very different characters and her face really can take any hair color. Apparently Carrie couldn't go outside when they weren't filming White Lotus because she had to stay as pale as possible for her character in The Gilded Age!
Nosferatu is just vibes. We finally watched it last weekend. My husband wrote a review based on my verbal ramblings as our first entry on Letterboxd. I said a lot more stuff about the costumes being great, nice cinematography, and seeing Johnny Depp's daughter contort her body in all sorts of unimaginable ways but all he got was this:
Black Mirror is back. Absolutely stacked cast. Drops April 10. (Trailer).
Episodes:
Common People: (Rashida Jones, Chris O'Dowd and Tracee Ellis Ross)
Béte Noire: (Rosy McEwen and Siena Kelly)
Eulogy: (Paul Giamatti and Patsy Ferran)
Plaything: (Peter Capaldi and Lewis Gribben (+Will Poulter and Asim Chaudhry))
Hotel Reverie: (Emma Corrin, Issa Rae and Awkwafina)
USS Callister: Into Infinity: (Cristina Milioti and Jimmi Simpson)
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