The hand gestures. The aperitivo snacks. The men who ride bicycles in Brioni suits. The massively talented artisans, and the chaos on which everyone seemingly thrives. According to La DoubleJ’s Milan-based founder JJ Martin, these are just a few of the endless reasons to embrace Italian life. And by that, she actually means living in—not just visiting or traveling through—Italy, an effort requiring one to see and accept the often-romanticized country in all its complicated, contradictory forms.
Often it takes an outsider’s eye to notice the habitual, deeply ingrained cultural paradoxes of another country. In her new book Mamma Milano: Lessons From The Motherland, Martin, a Californian-born New Yorker who moved to Milan in 2001, offers up a resplendent take on la vita Italiana, told through her own personal journey. The book is, in equal parts, a memoir, a design journal, a travel guide, a blueprint for starting one’s own business, and even a guide to adopting a spiritual practice, which became an integral—if unexpected—component of Martin’s own self-transformation and assimilation abroad. “Italy was my first spiritual teacher,” she says. “There is real wisdom baked into the traditions, the land, the rhythm, the energy of this motherland, and it is a real feminine force.”
When Martin moved to Milan 22 years ago to join her then-boyfriend, she had been living in Manhattan and working in marketing at Calvin Klein. Despite the job seeming like the “pinnacle of cool,” Martin often felt disconnected from her colleagues and the overarching aesthetics of the brand. “Everyone and everything was done up in minimalist black and white, down to the Post-its, while I would show up in a car crash of bright vintage prints,” she writes in the book. Meanwhile, the constant churn of New York’s hustle culture started to feel less aspirational, and more like a draining and unsatisfying grind.
As idyllic as it sounded, a fresh start in Milan had its own shortcomings, too: the confusing and disorganized bureaucracy; the maddeningly long lines and density of spaces; the obvious tendency of local shopkeepers to disregard her as an aloof American. “There was no coffee to go. No salad bars. I couldn’t jog without tripping on a wayward cobblestone or getting stared down for exercising in public,” Martin explains in the book. “It’s not all Under the Tuscan Sun, and Julia Roberts eating food in Rome. The struggle is real, and there was a lot of learning that I thought would be a benefit,” she says later, reflecting on her narrative choices.
Eventually, little by little—or as the Italians would say, piano, piano—Martin surrendered to the nature of her surroundings. And wondrous things happened. “When I stopped blaming and fighting with Italy, Italy stopped fighting with me. When I did less, I got more,” she writes. Friendships blossomed and flourished, the cultural nuances became sources of inspiration and aspects to emulate, and Martin, in a sense, found herself—or at least a new sense of self. “When you surrender and just let go, not only are you more attuned and open to the beauty of what s around you, but then you ve also cut yourself down to zero. That’s the point where you can create something new,” she tells me.
Beyond explaining some of Milan’s unusual social norms, Martin offers a rich and panoramic-seeming view of the inner lives and customs of her new neighbors: the deeply-held importance of family close relationships; what it means to dress like an Italian with exuberance and pride in one’s bella figura; food, aperitivo hour, and the art of hosting. (Note: it’s less about recipes than it is about ingredients and attitude.) She provides insight into the extremely stylish, appearance-keeping housewives of Milan, known as sciure, noting the stark contradictions—the simplicity of a meal, against the maximalist, over-the-top abundance of its table settings, for example—while simultaneously celebrating them.
There are scores of lessons, and small pamphlet-like inserts throughout, offering deeper exercises into subjects like vintage fashion, tabletop design choices, and Martin’s favorite travel destinations. Meanwhile, the book’s design is a riotous showcase of pattern and color that’s utterly reflective of Martin’s own style and fashion aesthetic, as exemplified in her home and fashion label La DoubleJ, which she founded in 2015. Indeed, there’s a very paradoxical Milanese quality to the book itself: there is so much to visually take in through the vibrant art direction—its own form of beautiful chaos—and yet the experience of Martin’s journey is so compellingly told, readers will want to slow down (piano, piano) to fully absorb her words.
Martin doesn’t imply that moving to Italy will have the same radical impact on everyone, but she hopes that her own personal awakening will impart a desire to celebrate life and beauty—regardless of one’s locale. “The Italians have open hearts—they’re joyful,” she adds. “And when someone makes a mistake, it’s okay. They’re fun-loving. And there’s so much to learn from that.”