Milan Universe, 10 Corso Como
This is a small part of the world that has the ability to include everything. Knows about fashion, architecture and design. It knows as well how to generate its own atmospheres. 10 Corso Como, with more than 20 years of existence, has given greater depth to the concept of store.
In 1990, Italian gallerist Carla Sozzani created her own world in central streets of Milan, her native city. Her long career as editor of several fashion publications, specially Vogue and Elle, apart of her work with contemporary artists like Herb Ritts, Robert Mapplethorpe, or Sarah Moon, gave her ample experience that had to be captured some way. Creating her own magazine or opening a gallery would be an obvious path. Maybe that was the reason that pushed Sozzani to do it differently. She opted for the signs of her own creativity and, that way, 10 Corso Como started to create its own sketches. It’s a store, a space, a concept that many people want to follow. People attracted to visual arts’ world consider it a small temple that has to be visited if Milan appears in the travel schedule.
A magazine thar breaths
Sozzani loves to compare her store with a living magazine. A place in three dimensions where art personalities collaborate through temporary expositions by selling their creations or talking about fashion, painting, architecture or photography. At present time, many editions have landed at internet’s world, but Sozzani took a different path in order to create a space where buying, talking and observing may occur at the same time. It’s a proposal close to “slow” trends.
Universe ingredients, first floor
There are several fashion stores, Italian cafeterias and street environment at Corso Como Street, inviting to walk it at different hours. Each moment has its own essence. Specially, at number 10. It’s something you perceive since seeing the discreet façade of the ancient industrial construction where it’s located, and know that different things may happen there. A garden full of flowers guide you to the cafeteria, a spectacular space designed by Kris Ruhs – an American painter, sculptor, jeweler and ceramist--, who played with natural and artificial light in the old structures. The store is located at one side, where fashion is the main guest. Well known designers offer their best works: clothing and accessories as well. Not buying something here cause no frustration at all, because by seeing its proposals, the visit is worth. But if you were brave enough to open your wallet, there are no words to define the quality of the object you are taking home.
Universe ingredients, second floor
10 Corso Como is formed by spaces where philosophy, the concept more than the object by itself, or the consumption, have priority. On second floor you must breathe deeply in order to visit the library corners. Artists of all the world, of any trend and of diverse disciplines, present their work through hundreds of publications that are available on the library shelves. You must control your cravings because they want to go to the next gallery as soon as possible: it’s a place reserved to different kind of expositions, mainly, photography and painting, but taking into account avant garde proposals. In both spaces, of course, fashion has large doses of prominence. Sozzani doesn’t hide her origin and doesn’t try to; on the contrary, she exhales it. Works of Helmut Newton, Annie Leibovitz or Bruce Webber, among others, have ben exposed in the gallery’s walls.
Permanent evolution
3Rooms is also located in this building: it’s a small hotel with three suite rooms for those who don’t want to leave Sozzani’s small world. Decoration and service are superb. Sebastian Matta, Eero Saarinen and Joe Colombo are some of the artists who decorated the suite rooms. Its roof garden invites you to visit the rest of Corso Como Street at any other moment. If you want to get more doses of this concept, visit Seul, Shangai and Beijing branches.
