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A DAY IN BRERA
With Carlotta Orlando - Fashion Designer
Carlotta Orlando is 25 years old. She works as a fashion designer. She founded Giglio Tigrato, an upcycling brand which makes sustainable fashion items out of waste materials recovered from made-in-Italy luxury firms.
Milano is her base, and in particular the Brera Art District, where she has always lived and where she currently works.
Brera is the picturesque neighborhood of Milano dating back to the 19th century which has plenty of things to see and do: from cafés to restaurants, from art shops to fashion ateliers, everything revolves around Pinacoteca di Brera, one of Europe’s major art museums for Renaissance and Romantic painting, which hosts the Art Academy, the Braidense Library, and the Brera Botanical Garden.
International students and international tourists are in love with Brera.
For Carlotta, Brera’s most topical eatery is La Libera in Via Palermo 21, a restaurant where you can taste the yellow risotto and all the typical dishes of the Milanese tradition in a warm and welcoming environment.
After lunch or dinner, it's worth stopping for an espresso or an aperitivo at the veritable institution of the neighborhood, Bar Jamaica (Via Brera 32).
In existence since 1911, it’s where the artists of Arte Povera and the writers and designers of the postwar industrial miracle used to hang out and get plastered.
Today it is still a meeting place for people eager to share a creative thought or an art craze. Great conversations happen here, leading to major hangovers.
The Brera Botanical Garden is a small oasis within the city center, where you can walk among the trees, smell the flowers and relax on the benches surrounded by greenery, under the shade of the old astronomical tower.
Outside the Pinacoteca (via Brera, 28), Carlotta recommends visiting San Marco (Piazza S. Marco, 2) and San Simpliciano (Piazza S. Simpliciano, 7), two wonderful churches rich in art and history.
And then she suggests you take walk along Via Ciovasso, Via Ciovassino, Via dell'Orso, and the many lanes and alleys that make Brera uniquely charming.
Brera is also full of vintage shops and design stores to be explored out of curiosity, to find inspiration or a particular accessory. Among the many options availabe, Carlotta recommends La Bottega Rossa (Via Ciovasso 6), a flashy shop where you can go in search of unique vintage pieces and modern antiques.
