Exploring the intersection of European design culture and Australian craftsmanship, we uncover how Abode Living’s firsthand experience at Milan Design Week informs the creative direction of the Melbourne-based company.
Produced in partnership with Abode Living.
As design week unfolded across Milan’s courtyards, galleries, and showrooms, Abode Living creative director Amelia Marasco Adair and her team took in the streetscape with a discerning eye—seeking not just inspiration, but connection. The Melbourne-based luxury textile company has long maintained a collaborative partnership with Italian textile mill Kohro, and this year’s visit to Italy reaffirmed the strength of that global thread.
“Everywhere I turned, there was evidence of outdoor living being treated with the same reverence as indoor spaces,” Marasco Adair says. “Oversized, comfortable cushions, boucle in every imaginable shade, and richly coloured marbles—especially deep burgundy and green—set the tone.” These tactile and tonal cues will shape Abode Living’s new winter collection, with dual-sided boucle throws, new yarns, and a deeper exploration of textural luxury.
At the Kohro showroom in Brera—and at the Bergamo mill forty minutes outside the city centre—Marasco Adair and her team viewed new textile collections and watched the earliest stages of yarn spinning and loom weaving. “Seeing our fabrics begin their journey in Italy, and knowing they’ll be finished in our Melbourne factory to suit the exact dimensions of a designer’s project—it really reinforces what makes our process so unique,” she says.
This connection between European innovation and Australian craftsmanship allows Abode Living to respond to global design movements with timeliness and authenticity. Whether it’s a jacquard weave inspired by 1960s Italian interiors or a bedding palette informed by ochre-toned marble and brushed bronze—each Abode piece feels both ‘of-the-moment’ and enduring.
For the team at Abode Living, what matters most is bringing home not just the fabric—but the philosophy. “We don’t just import textiles. We translate the spirit of global design into products that are considered, tactile, and made to last.”
This piece originally appeared in our Milan special issue of est magazine: ‘Milano 2025.
