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Habits Culti
Stuffy offices beg to be misted with Culti's green-tea room spray, and spice-spiked candles turn ordinary bathrooms into beauty temples. Habits Culti has won a cult following for its savoury foodie scents and unapologetic florals, plus flower bouquets gone dramatic with reeds and driftwood elements.
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Habits Culti Spa
Vestal virgins and others in tension-producing jobs find release at last in this wellness sanctuary, with altar-like platform baths that suggest you might receive an oracle with your hammam treatment ( €90 - €150 ). Couples therapy is actually productive in side-by-side baths (around €110 for two), and even if mineral water massages ( €80 - €130 ) may not 'open your mind' as promised, they'll surely win over skeptics.
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Hoepli
Hanging out in Italy's largest bookstore almost gives you smarts by osmosis, with six floors and some 500,000 cookbooks, art books, science tomes, kids books and rare antiquarian books to absorb.
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Hogan
The saving grace of cobblestone-pounding, style-conscious Milanese, Hogan built a global reputation on fancy sneakers that are a dream to wear. Now that flair for casual finery is also found in retro peep-toe platforms and funky orange, brown and green striped bags in buttery leather. Prices are competitive with other Golden Quad designers, around €200 .
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I Pinco Pallino
That chandelier of glass animals must cast a powerful spell because enchanted parents surrender entire paycheques here on hand-sewn floating silk dresses ideal for tea parties in Wonderland, and embroidered overalls that make any tiny terror look like Little Boy Blue. Seasoned baby shower attendees agree: Pinco Pallino's baby gear branch on Borgospesso is the next-best baby gift to three wishes.
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Il Mondo é Piccolo
These imaginative, well-crafted toys are just the ticket to jumpstart young minds and second childhoods. Attempting to balance the tricky Repo Man between two poles brings a new appreciation of physics principles, and wooden Hula Hoops beat gym memberships any day. Besides, it's never too late to enjoy a wheeled wooden duck on a stick.
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Isola Show Room
Everything here is handmade, streetsmart and way too cool for design school: mod enamel jewellery, limited-edition T-shirts with 'Spaghetti Club' slogans and wild-style graffiti paintings, all at starving-artist prices. Best of all are mother-daughter team Lavgon's one-of-a-kind quilted skirts with raw silk edges, and deconstructed wool jackets with vintage fabric inside the sleeves.
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L'Isola del Fumetto
In Italy, fumetti (comics) aren't just kids' stuff: grown men have been known to weep to discover these rare Italian comic books and hard-to-find action figures, and bargain-priced Italian translations of Flash Gordon and Gli Incredibili ( The Incredibles ) practically beg to be turned into laminated earrings and decoupage tables.
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La Perla
Naughty but nice La Perla lingerie is branching out from its signature lacy bras to bathing suits that seem to be made entirely of straps.
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La Vetrina di Beryl
This is what it must be like to raid the photo-shoot shoe racks at Italian Vogue . At around €80 , Ordinary People house brand ballerina silk espadrilles keep pace with the best, including Georgina Goodman's seafoam green crackled leather pumps with a lip like a frog's (around €490 ) and Marc Jacobs metallic T-straps ( €250 ).
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Le Solferine
Turn the sidewalk into your own personal runway in Solferine's standout shoes. Any week is Fashion Week in handcrafted boots with inlaid rhinestone heels, and it only takes two of those gold leather peep toe heels to tango.
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Limoni
Binge on beauty with two floors of the most sought-after perfumes and products. Italian favourites include Perlier bath foam in yummy honey, and Pupa make-up for its winsome packaging: yank the tail of that giraffe or lion compact, and out slide trays of lip gloss and eye shadow.
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Love Therapy
Back in the '80s, designer Elio Fiorucci was all about cherub T-shirts and red jeans - but now he's moved on to garden gnomes and gotten into Love Therapy. You will too, with gnome tees for adults and kids, funky Irregular Choice metallic flats, and orange and green Orla Kiely raincoats for strutting in storms.
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Luisa Beccaria
If ever you're stumped about what to wear to a wedding, here's your answer. Make an Audrey Hepburn entrance in diaphanous silk that floats right off the shoulders, custom-designed for shameless figure flattery.
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Mandarina Duck
Nice try, Tumi and Samsonite: Mandarina Duck still does the streamlined look best, in space-age fabrics, offbeat colours, and striking shapes with rounded edges. Instead of perching atop pedestals, these bags are displayed slung across furniture, just like back home - only there's probably no scrounging for change in these designer sofas.
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Martino Midali
Midali has a flair for delicate nips and tucks that would make a plastic surgeon jealous. His ingeniously ruched purple silk skirt nips in to make any waistline look tiny, and pin-tucking turns a plain white cotton shirt into a wonder with hundreds of tiny folds of fabric.
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Mauro Leoni
You knew there had to be a fun, original, wearable, inexpensive shoe maker in Milan, and Mauro's it. Metallic ballet slippers with an X marking the spot across the toe, 1940s pink wing-tip pumps, red polka-dotted grosgrain heels, and orange T-strap flats, all for less than around €75 - it's enough to make you forget all about that mean old Manolo and standoffish Jimmy Choo, and finally fall in love again.
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Messaggerie Musicali
A multicourse feast for media omnivores, from CDs and DVDs in the basement (including special selections of Italian movies and singers) through English-language novels and travel on the second floor. Top off your media meal with a design mag and an espresso in the café.
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MH Way
Art and design acolytes worldwide adore this Japanese Italian bag designer for ingeniously compact shapes, sensational colours, technology-enhanced durability and prices that love you back. The two-storey showroom at Via Durini 2 also functions as a factory outlet, so you can snap up sample sale items for a song.
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Moroni Gomma
Every plastic gizmo imaginable, and then some: credit cards you use to grate garlic, Kartell orange Lucite end tables, melamine bowls lined with photographic serving suggestions of popcorn or pistachios. Don't miss the 'nice price' bargains on the mezzanine.
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Muji
With no logos, brown cardboard notebooks and accessories, industrial canvas jackets and backpacks, and few items over €50 , Muji might make you wonder if you're still in Milan. The dead giveaway is the award-winning minimalist design, matched with Japanese flair for utilitarian materials.
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Nava
Museum stores and swanky stationers have peddled Nava designs since 1970, but now the Milan-based designer has its own showroom featuring high-style office supplies and leather goods at mass-market prices. Great pocket notebooks in glossy DayGlo colours, moulded aluminium desk sets and satchels good to go from office to art gallery openings.
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Pasticceria Giovanni Galli
Apparently, heaven can be purchased at a price of 6 for around €5.50 . Alchechengi are Lombardy's special cherry tomatoes dunked in maraschino liquor and pure dark chocolate - if this won't win you over to vegetables, nothing will. Since 1880, Milanese have salivated over the marrone (candied chestnuts) in Galli's wooden display cases, but try the new-fangled hot-pepper chocolates too.
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Patrizia Pepe
Who can be bothered with all those flounces and bows on the metro? Patrizia Pepe gets what urban women really want - feminine tailoring - and makes it snappy. Her cuts are curvy and colours clever, with a certain refinement that shows who's in control here, and she's perfectly capable of pulling off cream leather knickerbockers.
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Peck
Fans of cold cuts will be awestruck by Peck's prosciutto-lined walls, and dessert devotees will pay their respects to the altar-sized sweets counter, but it would be a culinary sin to neglect Peck's famous wine cellar, legendary homemade ravioli and 3000 variations of parmigiano reggiano (parmesan cheese).
