JW Anderson Lights Up Milan’s Golden Triangle With a Neon Storefront
LONDON — JW Anderson is bringing a flash of neon to Milan’s golden triangle.
On Wednesday, the designer will open his first Italian store on via Sant’Andrea 16, which blends the cheeky elements of the brand’s London Soho unit with Milanese bourgeois polish.
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The brands’ distinctive red and blue neon signage invites customers into a minimalist store adorned with furniture, art and design from some of designer Jonathan Anderson’s favorite creatives.
The store spans 570 square feet and is divided into two main rooms with a full-height windows facing the street.
Those windows will showcase the brand’s new collaboration with British rain boot company Wellipets, which launched for spring. The froggy-eyed rubber clogs come in green, yellow and blue, and their childlike charm is a fitting contrast to the neon lights in the window.
Housed in a former Kiton store, the space has been designed by 6a Architects, the same firm that designed JW Anderson’s Soho unit. Milanese neighbors include Chanel, Miu Miu and Prada.
Inside, the brand’s signature aluminum scaffolding and display structures mingle with traditional, handmade terrazzo tile flooring done in a bespoke blend of colors. Walnut fluted panels cover the two main pillars inside, adding a dash of warmth and tactility.
The furnishing is sparse, but packs a punch. There is a 1920s-era Cardinal Hat Pendant light from Lutyens Furniture in the main room. Benchmark Studio’s black Iklwa chair by Mac Collins and matching side tables wink to the Milanese salotto, or reception room.
On the walls are two oil paintings by the Chinese artist Hongyan. One is called “Sprinklers” and the other is called “Window.” The changing rooms, meanwhile, are adorned with Wolfgang Tillmans images.
Anderson said he wants his stores to reflect the city where they’re located, hence the terrazzo floors, and the bourgeois intellectual mood of the place.
“When you go to an Italian home, there’s nothing better than a fantastic terrazzo floor,” said Anderson, adding that he wanted the store to feel like a home, with a little half-staircase that leads nowhere (similar to the London store) and statement lamps and chairs that conjure a domestic space.
Asked why he decided to open his second store in Milan, Anderson said there is demand in the local market, helped by a bounceback in tourism in Milan.
Anderson has also started showing the JW Anderson men’s collections in Milan, on the runway or with innovative takeovers such as mobile billboard trucks tooling through the streets.
Anderson first teased the store opening on the brand’s Instagram ahead of the men’s fall 2023 and women’s pre-fall 2023 show that took place in the Italian city in January.
He said that Europe, as a whole, is “exploding at the moment so opening here was a natural progression.” He said his third store will most likely be in New York.
Since it opened in March 2020, shortly before lockdown in the U.K., the Soho store has become an integral part of the neighborhood.
The neon JW Anderson sign references the louche nightlife scene, which took root in the 1930s, and the shopfronts of the brands neighbors including the Las Vegas video arcade. Anderson staged the brand’s spring 2023 show at the arcade, with models snaking through a maze of flashing video-game machines.
The London store is larger, spanning 1,300 square feet across two sites. It was also designed by the architectural firm 6a, which worked on “Disobedient Bodies,” the show Anderson curated at Yorkshire’s Hepworth Gallery in 2017.
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