Designer Milan

All that Glitters

Prada shoes were made for walking and Armani suits were made for wearing, so after you’ve finished shopping, model your Milan purchases at the fashion brand-owned bars, cafés and spas

words by Sophy Grimshaw

Hitting the shops on Milan’s ‘golden rectangle’ of high-end fashion retailers – the four streets of Via della Spiga, Via Sant’Andrea, Via Montenapoleone and Via Manzoni – can be exhausting, with or without caffeine flowing through your veins (though no one has ever actually tried the latter). Window shopping is like a sport here and stamina wins the day. In contrast to other fashion capitals, easy-going shop assistants don’t seem to mind who has their paws all over the merchandise.

Take refuge from the streets in Just Cavalli on Via della Spiga. Push the bejewelled elephant door handle to enter the store and once you’ve scanned the elegant, silky garments, hop in the elevator to the downstairs café. It’s only a two-floor ride, but the way Cavalli see it, that’s no reason not to equip the lift with white fluffy sofas, leather-padded walls and video screens showing recent catwalk shows. In the belly of the store the variety of fish in the 7,000-litre aquarium offers the only real competition to Milan’s other great unofficial sport: people-watching. When the groomed, metrosexual waiting staff here start flirting with the customers and one another, it’s enough to mess with anyone’s gaydar. Whether you order a Bloody Mary or a pear juice, don’t forget to set your shopping bags down and take it all in.

Yes, thanks to the trend for in-store leisure facilities, shopping in Milan need not be gruelling. Could there be a more pleasurable shopping/drinking/chilling experience in the western hemisphere than Corso Como 10? Close to the Garibaldi metro stop, the mini-empire of Milanese style maven Carla Sozzani encompasses a clothing and lifestyle store, hotel (albeit one with only three rooms – nice crash pad if you can get it) and bar-café. Like so many of Milan’s fashion hangouts, it’s not obviously visible from the street, but in a heartbeat, pavement-pounders in the know can make the transition from traffic smog and darting scooters to perfumed air and wide open shopping spaces. Settle into a chair in the pretty courtyard and over your morning espresso or evening Negroni, the city feels like your own.

In the main store, you can browse shoes and bags by Miu Miu and Prada, riffle through racks of Alice Temperly dresses and Burberry trench coats for a British look, or pick up miscellaneous extras. Close to the lingerie, all of which is so beautiful, tiny and expensive it should probably be framed rather than worn, you’ll find toys for both children and adults. After all, who doesn’t need a diamanté riding crop for the bedroom?

Any city can rustle up an in-store café, however spectacular Milan’s may be. What’s different here is that clothiers are branching out further into the luxury lifestyle market. At the Gianfranco Ferre store on Via Pontaccio there’s an in-store Espa-branded day spa, complete with a pool and a view of cherry blossoms falling in a Buddhist-style relaxation garden, all hidden behind an enormous sheath of an automatic door.

The automatic door is an invention, incidentally, the Milanese just can’t get enough of. Whereas in other cities its associations are with supermarkets, in Milan if a door isn’t automatic it simply isn’t considered worth walking through.

The spa is a blur of delicate gold mosaic tiles and there are even glitter balls in the sauna rooms. Locals unashamedly love bling and have a notable absence of bourgeois guilt about it – even the homeless are bilingual entrepreneurs.

While the city’s male residents wear their designer stubble like a uniform, they too now expect personal-grooming help from their fashion stores. They can visit the Gianfranco Ferre spa after picking out a suit but, despite the staff’s protestations to the contrary, there is something implicitly female-friendly about it – perhaps because it looks just like Madonna’s stage set? Milanese men prefer the in-house barber shop at the Dolce & Gabbana store on Corso Venezia, which although tiny – there are only two barber’s chairs and a small waiting bench – is an invaluable sanctuary of masculinity in a shopping street stuffed with pink Dior handbags. Post-haircut, gents can order a Martini in the adjoining bar. It’s a black lacquered, vertical tube of a room that, again despite its small size, men swarm to and seem palpably sad to leave.

Whether or not you fit in a spa treatment, haircut or midday Martini, even the shortest browse around Milan’s fashionista haunts would be incomplete without a mention of the big ‘A’. Armani has become a kind of multi-tasking superbrand, the jewel in its crown being a shopping palace that’s actually very disappointing, with an ’80s mall feel. Perhaps surprisingly then, at the adjoining Armani Café you’ll find one of the best aperitivo spots in the city. The décor is just white walls in a white box of a bar, which somehow feels impossibly chic. Down a Tom Collins here at 6pm and you’ll agree the Italian lifestyle has its appeal.

If you’re looking to party late into the night with the fashion crowd, your options are many and varied. Armani Privé, on Via Pisoni, is the club beneath the Nobu sushi bar. To sit at a table, you’ll have to comply with a one-bottle-of-wine minimum, which doesn’t sound that bad until you realise the wine starts at €220. If you’re feeling flush and your feet aren’t too tired from shopping, you can cut some rug on the beige carpeted dance floor. Or eat dinner upstairs at the Armani branch of Nobu, where beautiful strangers wearing Vivienne Westwood, Prada and Fendi spend all night deliberately ignoring each other at the bar.

Want even more flash for your cash? If, to borrow a phrase from Ava Gardner, deep down you’re very superficial, head to new bar and restaurant Dolce & Gabbana Gold, on Carlo Poeria, for a nightspot that’s not so much dazzling as blinding. Check your coat at the cloakroom in exchange for a golden key charm; follow drinks at the golden bar and dinner at golden tables with a gold leaf-covered dessert; and in the bathroom, catch moments of the movie Goldfinger on the TVs inside every cubicle, then wash your hands in the golden sinks. It’s amazing how many women choose to wear, yes, gold, for their evening out here.

If you’d prefer a break from the in-your-face glitz, ironically, the hotel bar and restaurant of diamond dealers Bulgari is where you should head. There’s definitely an aristocratic feel here, with olive-green vintage sports cars lined up on the drive and a clean-cut style usually favoured by Americans: bleached woods and neutral colours. Have your dinner and cocktails on the patio in the summer and in the winter settle on the sofas next to an open fire and flip through tomes on the Bulgari brand.

If you don’t want to ensconce yourself in a hotel as high-end as Bulgari’s during your shopping, café-hopping weekend, there are a few affordable yet fashion-conscious alternatives, such as the pop art-style Nhow Milano, where rooms start from €130 compared to Bulgari’s €550. That should leave you with enough euros for another 15 espressos, a pair of designer shoes, a spa treatment…