If the new pope vapes

Milan: style, steel and slickery

Welcome to The Peel. A weekly dispatch from the AVM patch. Dig in, before it hits the compost.

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TRAVEL SZN 02

Sizzling along at 158km/h through the navel of Italy, my mind is delicious goo; a gilded plate of risotto alla milanese.

Not that I tried the dish whilst I was in the city, not that anyone seemed to be, except for one, lunchtime business-looking fella who, judging by his exclamations of, thank you very much gratzee, was not a native. In fact, all that which I had perceived of Milan was unfounded. I thought Milano would find a hole in me and poke a manicured fingernail through it. Dear reader, the chance to disprove our assumptions about a place is reason enough to go there.

Milan - Sat to Tues. One should ideally stay in a place long enough to be recognised by the neighbours, or, by another metric, to witness a pile of rubbish on an external windowsill grow incrementally. Walking out the first morning, my brother and host, dear F, advises me to look up. Wherever you go in Milan, be sure to look up. Sound advice to heed at the start of any trip; there’s stuff on the ground, but in order to take flight, one must familiarise with the skies.

Up high in Milan are balconies heavy with greenery, roof terraces on otherwise unremarkable buildings, stone accoutrements and marble balustrades boasting as much in beauty as they lack in use. And therein lies the rub. Although F tells me that it’s still cheaper to rent domestic and commercial space in Milan than London, it is catching up. Dear friend P, tells me, later that day, as we cross from the megachurch mausoleum I force him to take me round, that Meloni’s arrival into power has been less bad than feared, but inflation in the last year or two has spiked. As creatives, he and his friends will soon be priced out of Milan, unless they are employed by some big boss from the trinity: fashion, art, design.

necchi sarnie

To arrive in the city at the end of April, is to be late to the party. One finds a Milan just recovering from back to back weeks dedicated to each. You wouldn’t know it, things roll along; planes of ochre, taupe, and caramel the perfect foil for busy streets and quasi-chaos. Yes, I hyphenise! At no point did Milan seem to reach boiling; it maintained instead a sophisticated simmer.

That being said, they are absolutely jacked on perfect crema. Some athletes get tennis elbow, the Milanese get caffeine cramp. Stiffened into constant semi-circles, thumb ready to meet forefinger, to pluck the handle of an espresso cup at any given minute of the everloving day.

The exception are the sciurie, Milan’s elegant, middle-aged women. They are not limited to that grand, northern city alone, I would wager that sciuria are a national treasure of Italy. But thanks to the aforementioned titans of industry, as well as other sources of financial prowess, Milan may boast the best-heeled version, the superlative sciurie, if you will. Their hair is done, they have a heel, bag and jacket on. They use their smartphones reluctantly, they carry a shopping bag wherever they go. They prefer to walk, but when absolutely necessary, will board one of the ancient trams, sitting at the end of the wood-panelled bench close to the driver. As it twists and turns across the city’s web, they remain still. Spinal column as immutable as their ideals, opinions, and general resolve.

I wish I were an Italian man, with aftershave in my hair. If the single working mother is the most vulnerable, most socially insecure individual in the world, then the wealthy, middle-aged Italian man just might be the safest. In Milano, so protected are they that they are not to be seen much, except for occasionally on a pristine bike of a morning, at one end of a dog lead wearing a suit in the afternoon, or - and mainly - occupying the street-facing tables of every single bar.

As a middle class cis woman, they do not present much threat to me. They are largely uninterested, at most bemused by my strange, ugly shoes. Nick Cave would do well amongst them, Bill Nighy too. Occupation of the same tables at Lina Stores and Bar Italia is Bill’s Milan.

steely dans @ Prada land

I could write here about coffee, yes I could write pages on rocket fuel and its blood-writ rules. But it’s someone else’s game to go to Italy and send word only of its most famous export. Me? I want to talk about the fetish dungeon in Miuccia Prada’s bathroom.

Clubbing isn’t dead, it’s just under several layers of polished concrete at Fondazione Prada. As an erstwhile Berlinophile, as someone who has queued many times outside Berghain and been admitted only once, let me say this - there is something uniquely pleasurable about lowering tired cheeks onto polished steel. Something reassuring about closing a door in the same material behind oneself, for a moment of reflection. What you choose to do in there is between you and your god alone.

Go there, visit the wonderful exhibitions, resist temptation to take a selfie in the mirrored exterior of the central building, climb steps to the Biblioteca, but do not buy a coke from the vending machine, it will cost you €8. Beauty, cost, arm in arm.

I’ve said it, you’ve felt it: smoking is back. It never left Italy of course, and now vaping has arrived. In Milan, even. Not the remote-control looking things, mind; here women insert tiny white cartridges into opalescent docks, gold bangles jangling as they lift to their lips and draw.

If anyone could endorse vaping, it’s the Italians. They’re probably vaping in the Vatican right now. Seems unlikely, but as Ralph Fiennes says to the gathered cardinals in Conclave, our faith is a contrary, living thing, which walks hand in hand with doubt.

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✮ bag, jacket, jewels, hard shoe - the new keys, wallet, phone, lighter; no woman in Milan leaves home without these about her person

✮an unhoused man in a manicured square, body wrapped in a blanket bearing the Italian flag- a silent protest at the country which has failed him

✮to the person in a full red adidas tracksuit and black loafers, walking a Dalmatian with a red collar - I see you, I appreciate you

✮women riding bikes with such serenity, they could be sidesaddle

✮a prize for whoever can help me find the denim tote bag i saw, which had ‘passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you’ emblazoned across it

✮to the mad scientist looking fella spread out across three seats in Fondazione Prada’s reading room, baby take up that space!

✮only tourists wear shorts

E finalmente…some reccs