In the heart of Milan’s lively Porta Venezia district, at 3 Via Felice Casati, Vero has opened its first physical store. On this occasion, the young design brand founded in 2022 by Pasquale Apollonio presents a new modular shelving system, part of the drop 3 collection, created in collaboration with NAVET, a multidisciplinary design collective based in Stockholm and Milan. Vero’s permanent collection is also on display, declined in new colours and finishes.
Flexible and modular, these furnishings stand out for their Italian-made quality (the collections are made at a production site in Puglia) and for their decisive, often witty shapes, in line with the brand’s informal and direct imagery: “A ‘non-snob’ attitude”, as Riccardo Crenna, Vero’s creative director together with Simona Flacco, describes it: both architects, Flacco and Crenna are the co-founders of design consultancy firm Simple Flair and the Milanese “creative space” Riviera.
“Vero will be celebrating its first year since its launch last April, and we will try to take stock, to improve and continue this steady growth,” explains Apollonio, former head of interior contractor Level Project. During the Milano Design Week (18-23 April), the brand will launch drop 4, a collaboration with new designers meant to enter the permanent collection (reinforcing the serial nature of the brand). “We are also already working on drop 5; it could be our first collaboration with another brand,” the entrepreneur continues. “On the digital front we will expand to other social media, and we plan to launch a website update with new features.”
While until now the activity of Vero has been articulated on spot events and online activities, for its first birthday the brand has decided to tell its story in a physical location.
“The impetus came from the fact that Vero sees itself as a brand of values, which focuses on a community of reference, an audience that sees itself in how the brand acts,” says Crenna; “the physical space defines the positioning of the brand, but above all it wants to establish a relationship of trust between it and its community. The product is a means and not an end, and the space is intended as a destination for those who want to gravitate around the brand”.
The very design of the place is based on a very straightforward archetype of domesticity: a doormat (a metaphor for welcome and simplicity) that covers the entire floor, a non-binding element on which the furnishings rest with ease and flexibility.
The watchword: interaction. The calendar of activities hosted in the store is made up of a series of experiences that are akin to the soul of Vero in terms of values, target and tone of voice: from the pop-up shop of a Milanese florist to the world of food, the proposals are made on different levels, from the structured to the more extemporary, “because often the added value is ‘doing’ things rather than hyper-planning them”, concludes Crenna: “an impromptu dinner is sometimes more fun than a planned event.”
All photographs © Michela Locci
