Milan

‘I am in front of the disarming beauty of the Duomo above all that catchy and fast and frantic movements coming from all those people below. And I wonder how peace could be so loud and wonderful’

A journey is more than a vacation. Every journey is like living a new state of mind, having a walk down the streets of different cultures and emotions, collecting pictures of unknown corners and finding secret spots within the most famous cities of the world. Going through a journey means to fall in love, to have eyes and heart stolen by the beauty of the skylines, the shapes of the buildings, the perfection of the drawings and the details outside and inside a house. The real journey begins when we decide to stop watching and we start seeing instead. Henge has always been connected to the concept of journey: a way to discover and get deeply inside materials, cultures, people, design, art, knowledge itself. That is the reason why the brand of luxury interior design launched in 2013 a project about travels around the world from an Henge perspective.

Henge Travel is a project collecting pieces of world, frames of a beautiful reality seen with the eyes of an explorer.

Curiosity, knowledge, passion for art: feelings that can lead people to understand the living surrounding they inhabit. Because beauty is all around, waiting to be found and felt, not necessarily understood, but welcomed in our hearts and minds with respect and adoration. In 2015, Henge route crossed the Italian city of Milan and recorded a video to put together the most diverse and peculiar characteristic of the city in a sequence of scenes that bring who watches deep inside the true essence of the place. Fashion world, green parks. Art. Grey of buildings and sky. Overcrowded means of transport. Frantic atmosphere of the city. Workers. Street artists. A rooftop terrace in the main square of the city. A kiss. Slow, tasteful meals. Relax. Museums. An Italian aperitivo. The aperitivo is maybe one of the most known and exported traditions of the city: way more than a simple pre-dinner meal, it is a well-defined social moment that changed a lot through centuries. Wine was once used for medical purposes to stimulate hunger before meals by Hippocrates, who added herbs to make the medicine taste better. From that moment on, the drink was modified several times until, in Turin, at the end of 18th century, it was given a special recipe and named Vermouth. It was only at the beginning of 20th century, in Milan, that the Aperitivo changed into a strong and cultural tradition, a social moment of sharing and fun, with the same great importance of a main meal in Italy, and sometimes even more. To the wine list was added a cocktail list that grew longer and longer through the years, and glasses started to be accompanied with food, starters and even main courses when the trend began to switch again in Milan towards an evolution of this convivial moment, called Apericena. A moment that is fashionable to spend in crucial and cultural place of the city, sometimes to appreciate the landscape of great monuments scattered all around Milan, sometimes just to be seen doing so.

The art that invades Milan and its streets is maybe the most contemporary of Italy, becoming a meeting point of classical elements and legendary avant-garde and pioneer art expressions, often with a revolutionary soul. Milan is the centre of change, the trend-setter of the country, the place where to be provocative. The largely known and commonly considered obscene gesture of middle finger is one of the main and most represented monuments of Milan. Created by the contemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan, it is placed right in the middle of Piazza degli Affari, headquarter of Italian finance and economy. Its name, L.O.V.E, is an acronym that stands for the Italian words “Libertà, Odio, Vendetta, Eternità”, meaning “Freedom, Hate, Vendetta, Eternity”. The famous sculpture represents a hand caught during the fascist gesture for greetings, the so called “Roman salute”, but with all the fingers cut off expect for the middle one. The message communicated with the name, the sculpture, and the place it was installed on, is a strong opposition against fascism, repression and the leading role of the economic system. On 2013, during the famous Fashion Week, the sculpture was covered with a green glove by Greenpeace activists, protesting to ask the world of fashion to be more respectful with environmental issues.

Henge Travel is a project collecting pieces of world, frames of a beautiful reality seen with the eyes of an explorer. This time it focused on a city that never sleeps: Milan

Besides some provocative episodes like the one mentioned above, one of the biggest and most famous industries is the one of fashion luxury clothing. The Quadrilatero della Moda, translated as “quadrilateral of fashion”, also referred to as Via Montenapoleone fashion district, is a high-class fashion district in the very centre of Milan. It is characterized by the presence of an impressive number of boutiques and world’s major fashion houses. This area is considered by numerous experts of the field one of the most, or maybe the most important fashion district of the world. Because of the quadrilateral of fashion and its exclusive events, Milan is one of the four World Fashion Capitals, together with New York, Paris and London. The quadrilateral is located to the south of Porta Nuova and its sides are formed by the stunning streets Via Montenapoleone (SW), Via Manzoni (NW), Via della Spiga (NE), and Corso Venezia (SE).

Milan is a city that Henge observed in glimpses, collecting them into a multi-sensory stream of scenes that formed one of the videos of Henge Travel. A travel that never stops, as knowledge never comes to an end. Thrilled to bring you again in new worlds, making you experience new feelings and satisfying your curiosities, Henge Travel keeps following its original philosophy: imagine, travel and start seeing, because beauty is all around.