IMA, Italian Mission Awards, a well-established and sought-after appointment by all Business Travel industry. The initiative begins a competition, but mostly highlights the most important operators of the field and top travel managers who will be judged by an independent jury. The forthcoming edition, the seventh, will be hosted in September at Superstudio Più.

We wanted a summer location, as after the long months of lockdown we really wanted to celebrate outdoor the top value community such as the travel business one. We wanted a secure and well-established venue in the Milanese landscape of venues for events. We were looking for experience and staples for our Italian Mission Awards 2020 that shifted from March to September, according to the new context.  And here comes Superstudio Più in via Tortona, Milanese district hosting design week, had literally showed up as the ideal solution to return to celebrate safely...

After the experiment of the Digital Fashion Week in July in Milan, with controversial results, here are the first signs launched by the "daring" to bring fashion back to the center with phygital mode (physical and digital) for fashion shows and fairs that have always been our strong point capable of igniting interest, desire, business, relationships, trends. The hottest fashion show ever, White Show in September, at Superstudio Più will be there. With a totally renewed edition full of surprises.

In a moment of great uncertainty, the games are played day by day, trying to precede the times and send signs of optimism to obligatorily take us towards a way out of the long economic lockdown that is straining the fashion system. Massimiliano Bizzi, founder and creative director of White, the research fair that in twenty years of new ideas and successes has become the international focal point of research fashion, with more than 500 exhibitors spread over the Fashion District created in via Tortona, it is not going to give up on the challenge of relaunching...

Multimedia artist and visual designer, an innovator who eludes classifications, sought-after by the big fashion brands as well as by the worldwide museums and international universities, Felice Limosani is a no limits creative , able to see beyond and put beauty in a futuristic scenario. He says: "My personal direction is neo-Renaissance made of humanistic values, craftsmanship and technology, creativity and originality. For me, design is Italian: we have always been the country that generates quality, beauty and intuition capable of improving life and its daily taste."

You were among the first creatives to reinvent the "story" of the products with real unprecedented performances between art and technology. How did this professional choice come about?
I am a self-taught, no university or professional school. I made my debut as a DJ in the 80s and 90s, training myself with the poetry of remix. For 20 years I loved music and the night while during the day I used to read (and still do) for passion of sociology and technology essays with a humanistic orientation...

The Alto Adige is a unique and characteristic territory, a connecting link suspended between tradition and future, between Mediterranean and Middle-European culture, has produced top contemporary sensitive designers such as Matteo Thun and Martino Gamper, whereas among from Alto Adige there are companies rotating around traditions and ancestral materials such as iron, rock and wood skilfully transformed into contemporary and innovative products by a sharp generation of new entrepreneurs.  

Starting from this, Confartigianato Imprese Bolzano, in the person of Martin Haller - President IVH-Apa has supported the project ´Fingerprint Südtirol – Alto Adige: ten selected companies who will introduce in a preview at Superdesign Show the result of the combination between high mastery, top level craftsmanship and contemporary design. An eye to the future to reflect on the spirit of the time:  art and design blend in the profession...

Once the first Digital Fashion Week was over, the feeling was that Covid made a further victim: the fashion system. And all that goes with it. A reflection in cold blood on a half-successful event and on how to bring back the fashion trend.  

With great sorrow, I witnessed the last inexistent Milan Fashion Week of June, moved to July, spent among virtual attempts, calls on the web, mega-screens in the deserted city, digitalized presentations, the “missing” White, the most brilliant fair, with its experiments of Street Market and addressing eco-fashion and Fashion Revolution and its innovative men fashion proposals. An empty Tortona district, which used to be buzzing with fashion shows, events, hot show-rooms, restaurants full of creatives, for the sadness of residents and regulars. And the rest of the city, of course...

Live preview for the new Versace Flash Collection, from our Superstudio 13, with live performance by rap singer AJ Tracey accompanied by model dancing and interacting with the artist. A dazzling Donatella Versace could not miss to introduce Aj Tracey on stage for a preview of the new hit "Step on".

An intimist architect that seem to cover the periods favouring less striking, more subdued projects.  Emanuel Gargano was born in Assis where he still has his atelier today. He graduates in Urbino and moves with his studio to London where he collaborates with architect Claudio Silvestrin. His great love for natural elements and simplicity, in spite of his several international experiences and many awards. In his luminous proposals he instils the antique soul of things and magically transforms them into very modern, surprising and mysterious objects.  

The poles of your work and life roam among Assisi, London, New York. What do you “take” from such different places?
This little village where I was born, in the centre of Italy, located on top of a green little hill, has always been the source of great emotions and mysteries for me; it is completely built with a single type of soberly light pink stone, one single piece carved in a block of stone. The strictly medieval nucleus releases an emotionally captivating primordial energy that is difficult to explain.  Even though my studio is in London and the city I love is New York, I never felt so overwhelmed from such monochromatic, light and secret monumentality as in Assisi...

A pop-up operation feeds new life and arouses interest in beautiful houses-museums in the area of Bergamo under the initiative of DimoreDesign. Within old walls, breakaway elements such as furniture by top Italian designers make an appearance. A temporary operation that, in addition to on site visits, deserves a book. In progress.

I always thought about the fascination of contrasts, about cultural richness of comparison, even how much antique feeds the new (yet the “old” are a fundamental support for the young), about the correspondences among creative thoughts originating from either close or distant countries, times and cultures. 
The great initiative “Designers for Bergamo” shows in a plastic and immediate way how beauty integrates with other beauty, even though according to orthodox thought it may seem not to match at all.  Of course, this is no longer true today. The most beautiful houses in the world gathers passionate pieces and leave pre-set “styles” combining antique to contemporary, memory to experimentation, personality-design to avant-garde art, in a sort of in-progress collecting that tells a lot about who chooses and uses it...

Even before the pandemic, an increasing demand for quality has been registered as regards both public and private spaces.  To stay outside, pleasantly, in places designed to live in, not missing the comforts of household spaces. A request that has been accelerated and that has found many new responses. The outdoor gets back to being a reference scenario for designers and companies. But there are brands born around this theme, many years ago, and designers that have been designing to give substance to new forms of conviviality for many years. This is the case of Pedrali and CMP Design, that for eight years has been designing outdoor furniture for the same company.

Multi-purpose spaces, outside and inside
“We realised we need more space, more distances and that we want to occupy also in a different and elegant way, outdoor spaces of our homes, taking care of gardens, balconies and terraces”, says Monica Pedrali, “For our company it is a matter of continuing on a long established pathway; roots of Pedrali lie right in the outdoor world. Our father Mario has in fact began his activity in 1963 producing garden furniture in wrought iron”...

Almost 40 years after the birth of its first hub, 20 years after the establishment of Superstudio Più and passing through a series of events, evolutions, innovations, regenerations of post-industrial spaces, presentations of ideas and works around photography, design and creativity, Superstudio Group presents a new creature in a new space: Superstudio MAXI. Superstudio MAXI, is the new family member of Superstudio Group’s venues: Superstudio 13 and Superstudio Più. Together the three spaces will present during the next Milan Design Week a complete panorama focused on the theme of design innovation. The shows will encompass over 30,000 square meters on three locations within walking distance.

Superstudio MAXI will host a brand-new exhibition format: "DNADesignNatureArchitecture. The world of tomorrow". The show is based on a farsighted concept which, as event organizers and design week experts, we urgently feel the need to offer to visitors and to a precise cluster of exhibitors.
The perfect space to host DNADesign Nature Architecture. Superstudio Maxi is going to be the first Milanese building for temporary events provided with Leed certification. Completely revamped, luminous, grand and open location, powered by solar panels and renewable energy to embrace the lifestyle of the future and it is located in an extremely promising area of the city...