HOME + DESIGN The dining
HOME + DESIGN The dining room features vintage chairs using Florence Broadhurst velvets; right: Moor’s head vases on plinths Above, from top: the kitchen includes a Cappellini dining chair; a painting sourced from a trip to New York hangs in the living room In fact, it was the woman who assessed my final project at university who suggested the city to me. She thought I was too creative and hands-on to be an art historian,” he says. “I do love painting, and I’ve been making ceramics since I was a child.” He’s been in the city ever since, working his way around some of Milan’s bestknown fashion houses. He’s designed ready-to-wear at Roberto Cavalli and Gianfranco Ferré, and knitwear at Missoni. But five years ago, he moved into home design. Now one of his clients is Thun, the glass-and-ceramics brand with around 800 stores in Europe. He provides the art direction. There are five outlets in Milan alone, with a flagship on Corso Venezia. “It’s big business and quite a change from fashion,” he says. “But I’m interested in this part of the market with mass appeal. You know, my kitchen units are from Ikea. I’m very anti-snob!” “IT’S LIKE IF YOU PUT THE WRONG BELT OR SHOES WITH A DRESS, IT CHANGES EVERYTHING” He moved into his apartment, in an elegant 1920s building on a street near Milan’s centre, five years ago. Then he set about filling it with colour (blue, green, brown and bordeaux), art, and objects. “My home is my sanctuary,” he says. “I don’t care what others think of the intense colour scheme.” He admits that the cobaltblue carpet in the living room is quite a conversation piece. Back in Naples, his mother and father were keen collectors and interested in design, and certain pieces have migrated north with their son. A low-slung buttoned armchair in a steel frame is, he thinks, an old piece by B&B Italia that his mother had reupholstered. The multicoloured Rietveld chair was once in the family’s office. Moor’s head vases – acquired by Laurenzano’s father in the 1960s – have been produced in Sicily for centuries, and a king and queen duo now stand in his apartment on plinths. “The fact that they’re human size can make them quite unnerving,” he says. They’re not the only human heads on display: the apartment is full of portraiture. “I live on my own, so it’s nice to have people around me,” Laurenzano says with a laugh. In his previous home, a bigger place, an entire wall was filled with 40 portraits, many of them with stylistically different frames. “It’s the most important thing,” he says of the frames. “It’s like if you put the wrong belt or shoes with a dress, it changes everything.” The apartment, it seems, is also in a constant state of flux. The long shell chandelier by Verner Panton used to hang over the dining table. “But every time I opened the windows, the tinkling was too much,” he says. The replacement, by Achille Castiglioni, came from a market near Palma. “I’m more interested in telling stories,” he says about his home’s near-constant reinvention. “Now I need to stop myself.” ♦ 46 DEPARTURES-INTERNATIONAL.COM
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