lNINA’S RULES
Mix up your plates, especially for buffet dinners. Her four services are from Royal Copenhagen, Limoges, and antique Chinese, plus a set she bought in Vietnam. She mixes the traditional plates with modern flatware designed by Gio Ponti.
Even if you don’t cook, make sure your kitchen is prepared for someone who does. “I never cook anything,” Yashar says unapologetically. But her tricked-out, custom-made steel kitchen is ready for her housekeeper to whip up a meal. Most genius touch? Alpes Inox stovetops can swing to a vertical stance to save counter space.
Try something chic in the powder room. She puts Huile de Karite oil from Paris’ Sultan spa on her guest bath sink instead of lotion.
Aperitivo: Never serve drinks without an ample snack plate. She offers a pinzimonio (a selection of long, skinned vegetables placed in a tall jar) and cut up pieces of grana cheese.
Ice is absolutely acceptable in your white wine: winter or summer, Yashar’s drink of choice is La Piscine. She spikes her Ca del Bosco prosecco with big ice cubes.
Go-to dinner party dishes: Persian cuisine from the Yashar family history, together with simple Italian. Everything is based on rice, spices, vegetables and meat. They are single-dish dinners.
Insta-bookshelves organized by size: the classiest Milanese do not organize books by color. They do it by size and then line the stacks up in horizontal and vertical piles on the floor to create a graphic effect.
A bottle of wine is an acceptable but boring hostess gift: “I’ll bring a little something from Prada. If not, I bring a book.”
Wear fur but make sure it’s edgy. While most Milanese women wear classic, calf-length mink coats, Yashar floats around town in a dramatic all-black patchwork of astrakhan, baby asktrakan and long fox coat by Prada.
Do not fear the turban: from a simple scarf that you simply fold and tie around your head to the more advanced, molded styles, a turban is the quickest way to a BOOM! fashion moment, not to mention instant tidy hair. “I use them instead of going to the hairdresser,” Yashar says of her collection, which includes Prada, vintage prints and fur turbans for winter. (She keeps them folded flat and zipped up inside Prada shirt travel cases.)
Go bespoke: Yashar’s tailor not only custom-makes her two-piece skirt sets, bathing suits and nightgowns, but also her undergarments. Sewn from pastel gingham cotton or jewel-toned silk satin, the bras are beautiful enough to let them peak out from under a shirt or dress front.
Reinvent your jewelry. Pierced earrings can become pins on jackets or silk satin overcoats.
Long live the metal hanger! Yashar prefers the ones she gets from the dry cleaner as “they save loads of space.” Just make sure every hanger and garment points in the same direction.
No jeans. Ever. “The last time I wore them I was between 18 and 20 years old.”
– J.J. Martin
