Roots feel so essential in the world now—even more than ever after the pandemic,” Martina Mondadori says, standing on the landing of her new flat in Milan alongside her partner, Ashley Hicks. Mondadori relocated from London to Milan with her three children, Leonardo, Tancredi, and Cosima, in order to be closer to her mother, Paola Zanussi, and to connect the children with their Italian heritage. The choice would prove prescient on several levels, as the move occurred just before the world shut down.
Mondadori, founder of the tastemaking lifestyle brand and magazine Cabana and a scion of Italy’s influential Mondadori and Zanussi families, and Hicks, a decorator, artist, and the son of legendary designer David Hicks, decided to make the design of the flat a complete collaboration. Each brought a…