l Angela
“I like having lots of things together,” she says matter-of-factly. “This home is very large but it’s warm and intimate.”
Angela put together the pieces just as she does her beautifully layered fashion
shows—with nothing but heart and pure instinct. With an eye for top design and fashion, the house lacks the pretense of a formal collector. Rather it has the energy of a brilliant hoarder, someone who is able to pluck diamonds from oceans of second-hand crap. There are fancy Fornasetti objects, rare Venini glass, Ettore Sottsass mirrors and important 1950s furniture scattered throughout the two-story home, but it is also jam-packed with heaps of 5 euro ashtrays, flower ceramics and piles of colored enameled iron pots that Angela has somehow managed to make look precious.
“One by itself looks cheap,” she says of the objects, “but together they make a real statement.”
Print, pattern and color, hallmarks of the Missoni DNA, buoy both valuable and inexpensive objects alike in a wave of optimism. Contemporary art by Tracey Emin and Jenny Holzer may invoke a certain reverence, but it’s very hard not to laugh when one stumbles upon on a line up of miniature woven chairs faithfully waiting for the seven dwarfs to appear or an entire cabinet dedicated to kitschy pastel ceramics featuring Bambi the baby deer.
Now that traditional vintage finds are scarce, Angela has found new relevance in pieces other people would never think to consider. With her sophisticated eye for low-brow knick-knacks, she has made magic out of carnation-filled frogs and unusually beautiful low-end cut crystal.
“There’s that nothing left in vintage stores, so I have started collecting the mountains of other stuff I find,” she says cheerfully. “They all need families. It’s a form of adoption!”
Spoken like an authentic Italian mama with true style.
-J.J. Martin
