Missing Milan

When you're an international furniture store, and you tell people you're off on a buying trip, they naturally think "Milan!"

When you say, "No, this spring it's just High Point," you realize you aren't the only one who is a little disappointed.

Each spring, someone from LaDiff goes to Milan.

Last year, we missed this incredibly important and very well attended Italian 'furniture fair' because of a family engagement (it's not every day your first grade is in a play with Chinese songs).

This year, the decision was more difficult.

First, A - the prez - who LOVES to travel whenever and wherever - did attend the Cologne furniture fair in January and saw most of our vendors' 2009 introductions. (Not to mention the fact that he followed up the show with a skiing trip in Switzerland.)

Second, High Point and Milan overlap this spring. Each are hugely important furniture shows but in very different ways. Unfortunately, High Point is a 3 1/2 hour drive - Milan is 2 days of air travel - 1 each way. Just as the Milan show was starting... today... our other friends in North Carolina would be starting to greet those early arrivals. Trying to do both is exhausting.

In the end, Milan was voted out and High Point in.

Risotto vs. Grits.
Red wine vs. the accessory floor 'cart' ladies.

If food was the determining factor, the decision would have gone the other way completely. (I wonder if the waiters at LaBaita notice that A is not there?)

So, forgive us - please - if we are thinking about Kartell's big party, the Euroluce introductions, and even the body-hugging crowds on the metro trying to get back to the $400/night tiny hotel room. The Milan Fair is exquisitely, wonderfully, and exhaustingly Italian design and attitude at its very best.

Milan, we miss you.