Tour the richly layered Milan apartment of Textile Designer Idarica Gazzoni

HOUSE TOUR | ROOMS & GARDENS | WORLD OF CABANA

In a former casa di ringhiera in Milan’s Cinque Vie, Idarica Gazzoni has created a nomadic, memory layered interior shaped by ikat silks, antique campaign furniture and hand painted walls. Founder of fabric house Arjumand’s World, she reflects on movement, freedom and the emotional power of rooms that evolve with life.

BY COSMO BROCKWAY | ROOMS& GARDENS | 14 JANUARY 2026

Idarica Gazzoni's Milan apartment; Cabana Issue 20. Images © Guido Taroni.  

Perhaps only Idarica Gazzoni could pack up a palazzo like a Bedouin lady moving her tent. Having been unable to resist her pangs for la vita Milanese, the textile designer dismantled her Bologna home, Rossini’s frescoed palace, and decamped to an 18th-century former casa di ringhi era in the old Cinque Vie area of Milan.

With the nimble pluck of a true nomad, Idarica took down the ikat silk, hanging like waterfalls around the dining room, folded up the early Anglo Indian campaign daybed and cut a vast Persian rug to fit her new, smaller rooms. 

Wanting both the energy of metropolitan life and to be closer to her showroom—she is the founder of cult textile brand Arjumand’s World—Idarica was seduced by the first apartment she discovered. “By chance, I knew it well,” she explains. “It belonged to my old friend Raimonda Lanza. I used to spend many happy evenings here, surrounded by curated treasures and much laughter.”

Walking through its now empty rooms, save for some smoky gilded mirrors and family portraits left languishing in the bedroom, the designer was taken afresh by the proportions of the rooms and the memories the interiors induced of her youth. “I am deeply in love with the 18th century,” she remarks. “The wooden beams, with their exact widths to match the house, seduced me, alongside the curve of the rooms wending along the old Via Santa Marta—and the echo of traditional life in the (now covered) exterior balcony. It was all so familiar and so cosseting, speaking my name, in that low lit afternoon, I felt as though I made it mine.” 

Wanting to cocoon the rooms, Idarica painted the bone white salon in a cerulean sky blue “hand mixed in Navigli by a man who has been there forever.” She veiled the yawning spaces in the lofty bookcases with bamboo chik blinds in the manner of a Mughal Harem. “They have the effect of pilasters, but more mysterious somehow,” reflects Idarica. Above the marble fireplace, a striking velvet haiti, once adorning a Maghreb ceremonial tent, is framed with hanging Egyptian ceramics, glazed in Faiyum and looking perfectly at home in this eclectic room of curiosities. 

While most of the furniture has been recovered in white cotton covers, two low slipper chairs sing in the jewel tones of kink of pearls , a fabric of Idarica’s own design, inspired by a Russian brooch she once found. “I chose white because I wanted a feeling of clarity, of polish,” she laughs. “When possessions follow you around, they can feel weighted, so to change their appearance is a small act of escape.” 

The shadows dance, leading the eye into the dining room beyond. The designer has achieved a clever visual trope by draping the slender space in old mottled mirrors, serried rows of Ginori 1825 flowered china on the hessian gold walls, and an oversized crystal chandelier, which belonged to the apartment, having been designed by the Lanzas, inspired by the baroque interiors of Filippo Juvarra at Palazzo Reale di Torino.

“The stones came from Madagascar, and I have placed its pair at the foot of my bed so I can lie and watch the reflections play,” Idarica explains, leading me into the ikat billow of her bedchamber, lined with the Uzbek-inspired fabric that once covered her Bologna dining room. Purposely kept billowing, like the folds of a courtesan’s gown, the effect is startling and nomadic and conjures a fitting reverie in the dusk light.

“Here are two things I would never leave behind,” Idarica muses, “the tiny oil painting of a sleepwalking figure, a gift from my mother.. and the iron campaign daybed, given to me 25 years ago. Found at Guinevere Antiques, it makes me imagine life in the days of the great female explorers such as Jeanne Baret and Lady Hester Stanhope.” 

Settling onto the Iznik tulip covered sofa in the room, Idarica muses on houses that reflect the movement of life rather than acting as static stage sets. “It is the idea of freedom from constriction and creating a sanctuary that encourages you to feel free.”

Delving into her travels, she recalls the spell of Charleston encountered many moons ago, which she cites as a peerless example of this approach. “Going further east, I have recently returned from exploring the frescoed mansions of India’s Shekhawati desert. It was so inspiring to see the walls holding a language of their own with all the decorative painting, the lives of the caravan laden merchants coming to rest for a time, depicting their stories through murals and colors.”

Idarica’s wondrous warren of rooms is as magnificent as any palace because if you have enough space to dream, you have all the room in the world.

- - - - - - - - - -

This article was first published in Cabana Magazine Issue 20