Coco Brandolini d’Adda Collects the Way She Designs Fashion, and Her Milan Apartment Overflows with the Proof

Family heirlooms, rare finds, and bold choices reveal a personal universe that feels completely Coco.Fashion designer Coco Brandolini d’Adda, wearing a d'AddA dress and a Lisa Eisner necklace, on a Victorian Chinoiserie settee upholstered in Aurel by Décors Barbares in the living room. The artwork by Tatiana Trouvé is from Perrotin.Art: © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, ParisCoco Brandolini d’Adda, founder of the Milan-based fashion label d'AddA and a scion of generations of formidable tastemakers, is standing in front of a faded red French cabinet in the living room of the apartment she shares with her husband, Matteo Colombo, and their three daughters. “This is one of my cabinets of curiosities,” she says, swinging open the doors.Inside: Murano glass vases given to her by her grandfather in Venice, a colorful work by Alighiero Boetti that she bought after moving to Milan, and a small brass-and-bronze bird by the Milanese design legend Gabriella Crespi. “I’ve always loved her work,” Brandolini d’Adda says, lifting it from the shelf. “She was pure Italian craftsmanship, and a woman who excelled in a world of men.”Wait. Did she say one of her cabinets of curiosities? “Yes, I did!” she laughs. “There are more.”A glimpse into Brandolini d’Adda’s closet Looking from the book-lined dining room into the entrance, where a circular sculpture by Eve Rothschild hangs above a late-17th-century Italian cabinet atop an Art Deco chest of drawers. ART: Yuri Masnyj. © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. © Eva Rothschild / kaufmann repetto, Milano / New York. Francesco Clemente.Daughter Nina, wearing d'AddA, in Brandolini d’Adda’s design studio A variety of 18th- and 19th-century boxes and objects are displayed in a circular glass-topped table by Dimorestudio. The living room’s sofa wears Braquenié’s Taj Mahal, and the custom ottoman is covered in an Egyptian cotton and Moroccan embroidered panels; rug by Federica Tondato. ART: © 2026 Andrea Bowers / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New YorkFor Brandolini d’Adda, collecting fabulous things is less hobby than obsession. Nearby sits a glass-topped chest she commissioned from Dimorestudio, originally conceived as a place to display her small jewel boxes. “There are also two spoons in there,” she says. “One is Fabergé!”This recently expanded apartment gives Brandolini d’Adda more room for her passions. There are textiles gathered on travels to Bhutan and Uzbekistan, Gio Ponti furniture mixed with family heirlooms reupholstered in vintage fabrics, artworks by Francesco Clemente and Andrea Bowers, a 1940s Russian tea service, a small screen by the Paris-based 90-something-year-old craft legend Lilou Marquand, and a suite of plates discovered on holiday in Greece. She has a lamp she found on the street—“There’s no judgment where you find it, as long as it works”—next to glassware from Laguna~B, blown by her cousin Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda in Venice.Brandolini d’Adda and her daughters Lea and Cora in the dining room. The table, covered with an antique Chinese silk embroidered tablecloth, is set with a 1930s Clarice Cliff Bizarre tea set in the Gayday pattern, Crini & Sophia glass plates, and Laguna~B glasses. An Italian Art Nouveau chair upholstered in Trèfles by Décors Barbares with a pillow in a vintage Missoni fabric. A wall in the primary bedroom ART: Benjamin Degen / Susan Inglett Gallery, NYCSnapshots showing selections from d'AddA, Brandolini d’Adda’s clothing line. “That’s not storage—I want them there,” she says, pointing to stacks of bright silks piled atop the library shelves. “When people see them, they want to inspect them, which makes me happy.” She dutifully brings down a shimmering swatch acquired from a Buddhist monk she met traveling through Bhutan. Holding it in her hands, she still sounds amazed by the memory.“Sometimes I think about it: Am I a hoarder?” she says, smiling. “But I know when to stop—and a hoarder doesn’t. Besides, I like furniture more than anything. When you run out of rooms, you have to stop.”The London-based AD100 interior designer Leonora Hamill, who worked on this renovation, has known Brandolini d’Adda since childhood. “She is probably my only friend who picks up her children at school in couture and jeans,” she says. “She has always been like that. Our other friends and I had a more bourgeois attitude toward keeping our nicest clothes for special occasions, but Coco never thinks that way. She truly loves beautiful things, and they are an expression of her identity.”Some of Brandolini’s collections displayed on the shelves of a 19th-century Italian secretary. Brandolini d’Adda and her daughters in the primary bedroom, where the custom metal bed frame is dressed with a vintage Italian crocheted coverlet. ART: Leonora HamillDaughter Cora in the entry hall next to a Paolo Buffa table ART: © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.Vintage trimmings The apartment mirrors the woman who lives in it. “Coco definitely has more objects than any other client of mine,” Hamill says. “But she also derives great pleasure from assembling those objects. It never looks cluttered or messy in her house because everything has been positioned with purpose.”Brandolini d’Adda moved here with her husband and first child, Nina, when it was an intimate three-bedroom. “I don’t like a big home; I like to be cozy,” she says. “I like to be able to call my kids and for them to hear me.”Over the next decades, two more daughters, Lea and Cora, joined the family. “My poor husband—all these girls on top of each other!” she says. When the apartment next door became available, “we jumped on it.”A painting by Salvatore Emblema hangs above a Gio Ponti desk in the living room. ART: Salvatore Emblema. © 2026 Andrea Bowers / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.In the family room, daughter Lea reads on a custom ottoman covered in a French Art Nouveau textile with vintage trim. ART: Ernesto CaivanoA vibrant composition comprising a Massimo Vitali photograph, Neapolitan and Hungarian baskets, and a vintage Russian tray defines a kitchen wall. The vintage ceramic-top table was found at a New York City flea market, and the woven chair was bought at the Alcova exhibition during Milan Design Week. Some of the daughters’ artworks on display in the primary bath A basket of beauty essentials The additional space allowed each daughter to have her own bedroom. “They fight less, and can have friends over without stepping on each other.” And the former living room was turned into a generous dining room. “In the old apartment, I loved to entertain, even though it was tight. We didn’t have a table, but I’d have 30 or 40 people over,” she says, not that company was deterred. “Ultimately, space is less important than atmosphere.” Still, she admits she enjoys having a dining table that seats 14 now.The greatest luxury in the expanded apartment? Converting the former bedrooms into an in-house design studio for d’AddA, the artisanal, by-appointment-only fashion label she launched in 2022. “I love to work in the morning when the kids are at school. When they go early, I sit in my pajamas before the team gets here—it’s my favorite time.”Born and raised in Paris, Brandolini d’Adda grew up, Brandolini d’Adda grew up surrounded by stylish women. Her grandmother, Countess Cristiana Brandolini d’Adda, was renowned for her elegance and cultivated eye—she was the first person to hire design legend Renzo Mongiardino for a private residence in Paris. Coco’s mother, Georgina, spent years working with Valentino.Necklaces hang at the ready on a vintage rack. Laguna~B glassware is stowed in a 19th-century Northern Italian cabinet. A Biedermeier chair cushioned in Dahlias by Flora Soames Tableware includes a 1930s Clarice Cliff Bizarre tea set in the Gayday pattern, Crini & Sophia glass plates, and Laguna~B glasses, set atop an antique Chinese silk embroidered cloth. Brandolini d’Adda’s career began when she met Oscar de la Renta. “We had a feeling right away,” she says. He offered a three-month internship, which turned into a formal job offer. “I ended up staying for eight years. I learned everything from him; he was my mentor, my inspiration—he was everything.”After returning to Europe, Brandolini d’Adda worked with Alberta Ferretti, then Tomas Maier at Bottega Veneta. In 2012, Domenico Dolce hired her to help build Dolce & Gabbana’s Alta Moda operation. “I learned so much, from design to the concept behind a collection,” she says. “I never imagined such beauty—the quality, fit, and craftsmanship.”After a decade, Brandolini d’Adda decided it was time to go out on her own, and she credits Dolce for helping her realize what that business should be. “He told me, ‘You have a very strong personal style, and that’s exactly what you should do. Nothing else. Only focus on what you want to wear. If people are going to get into it, it’s because they want to dress like you.’ ”A slipper chair in the studio is upholstered with vintage textiles. In the dining room, Jansen sconces flank an early-20th-century Japanese embroidered silk panel purchased from Justin Evershed-Martin in London. Pieces from Brandolini d’Adda’s clothing line hang on custom painted hangers. Even more unexpectedly, he encouraged her to embrace something she had spent much of her life trying to avoid. “He told me, ‘You have an amazing family story that you don’t like to use, but you should. Talk about your grandmother and her eye. Talk about your aesthetic.’ ”Brandolini d’Adda pauses and gestures toward the apartment around her: the heirlooms, the travel finds, the textiles, the collections. These are memories, but also inspirations. “For years, I wanted to be Coco, my own person,” she says. “I finally had the maturity and confidence to accept that my heritage was something worth discussing. It was liberating. It was true. It was real. And I think people respond when you’re being honest.”This story appears in the September issue. Never miss a story when you subscribe to AD.Not a subscriber? Join AD for print and digital access now.Sign up for our daily newsletter to get the best of design in your inbox.