A great portrait of Italian design and Milanese and international creativity in the 80s and 90s will be on display at the ADI Design Museum in Milan from 15 May to 10 June 2024. 

Between 1980 and 2000 Davide Mercatali took more than 4,000 Polaroids . Portraits of friends that he archived and preserved in large ring books, the first 'Faces Books' in the history of creativity in Milan. He was the algorithm that put everyone in touch with everyone before the arrival of social networks.

As a passionate anthropologist, Mercatali photographed a large number of designers, including the great Italian and international masters Alessandro Mendini, Achille Castiglioni, Ron Arad, Riccardo Dalisi, Andrea Branzi and Nathalie Du Pasquier and the great tribe of creatives who circulated at first FuoriSalone in Milan. The great PR and design journalists, the protagonists of fashion, art and the characters of the Milanese nightlife, frequenters of the trendy clubs such as the Nave, the Banco, the Pois, the Carosello, the ATM, the Bar Basso, the Trattoria Tuscany and Plastic.

The 2,000 Polaroids on display in the exhibition , with an installation that develops along the ADI gallery like a stylized DNA, give us the faces of those who gave life to design in the last twenty years of the twentieth century and who still continue to influence young people today. generations. Pre-digital images that tell of collective meetings and events. They are snapshots taken naturally of curious and intriguing people, who were not 'famous' at that time, apart from the already very great ones. A glimpse of life lived, a great tribute. Precious documents of the years during which creativity transformed Milan into the capital of design, fashion, advertising, music and art.

After 40 years it is nice to remember those who made Milan and Italian design great through the memory of those who were and still are everyone's friends.