This Milan Home Is a Master Class in Mixing Shapes, Color, and Free Finds

Jul 14, 2023

By Erika Owen

Photography by Katja Stückrath

“I was working in Paris and I found it on the street,” designer Jazmin Feige says. “It was completely dirty, but I saw it and said, ‘You’re coming with me.’”

Even if you had 10 guesses as to what Jazmin is describing, we’d be here for a while. One half of Bougie Woogie—a design company characterized by its playful wiggle shapes and cheery color palette—Jazmin is talking about one of her greatest free furniture finds: a Joe Colombo Boby cart. Today, the cart holds a SodaStream and sits in the kitchen of the home she shares with her work and life partner, Matias Gonzalez.

Hidden in the corner of the kitchen, you’ll find one of Jazmin’s greatest curb finds: A Joe Colombo Boby cart, which now serves as a hub for plants and the pair’s sparkling water station.

Much of the art and many of the objects throughout the apartment are imbued with memories, like the strongman AeroPress poster from a beloved coffee shop in Berlin. Next to that is a set of their own plant stand designs, which elevate coffee accessories to save space.

The Argentinian designers met in 2013 at the University of Buenos Aires, where they were both studying industrial design. The duo went six years as best friends. “Suddenly, from one day to the other, we fell in love,” Jazmin says. “We didn’t expect it at all.” But it wasn’t simple. Matias opened his own design studio in Buenos Aires, while Jazmin moved to Paris for a job with L’Oreal. The plan was always for Matias to meet her in Paris, but running a design company and one completely unexpected variable (the pandemic) saw Jazmin booking a flight on one of the last airplanes home to Argentina in spring 2020 and moving into Matias’s home. “In that moment I wanted to be with my family and no one else, so I packed up my apartment and left.”

The designers searched for four months before finding a local sofa maker who would design a custom sofa for their home.

For this couple, the key to a fulfilling interior is to never get too used to the same thing. It’s not uncommon for them to add a new chair or completely rearrange the furniture.

The home is a mix of simultaneously colorful and calming hues. Playful silhouettes and delightful objects dot the shelves.

It’s safe to say that Bougie Woogie was born in this gray period of recent history: Now living in the same space, Jazmin felt encouraged to draw out her design ideas with the new ability to hand them off to Matias, who would bring them to reality. “I started drawing some different products, like our mirrors and bookends,” Jazmin says. “I gave Mati the designs and four days later he would have the prototype because he was able to do them. Yes, we use some external suppliers, but he did most of the work then and now leads the designers working in the design studio.”

The shelves in the designers’ living and dining space are a cost-effective DIY installation.

By Morgan Goldberg

By Sara Barragán del Rey

By Morgan Goldberg

A few years and one move later, their own home in Milan is dotted with prototypes of their work. From the pistachio-and-lilac pedestal shelves that house their extensive coffee tool collection to the iconic wiggle mirror in the living room, there’s a clear through line to this home. Elsewhere, a massive artwork behind the dining table is a nod to the Argentinian artists from home, while a poster of a strongman lifting an AeroPress is the manifestation of a shared memory: “That’s a real poster from an AeroPress competition that was happening in Berlin when we were there on holiday in 2018,” Jazmin says. “We went to Five Elephants—it’s an amazing specialty coffee store—and all of these posters were on the table. We asked the barista if we could take one.”

The couple’s Biscuit entryway mirror greets friends at the front door.

A sense of spontaneity and joy continues in the playful moments of Jazmin and Matias’s space. One example is the photo of laundry drying on a clothesline, a gift from the same photographer-friend who captured the interiors images seen here. (“She took that photo on a trip [to] Japan and gave it to me as a present for my bathroom,” Jazmin says). Not far way, in the bedroom, a blobby rug anchors a yellow-striped bed. “We love to have pieces that live well together but [that you might not have] expected them to be together,” Jazmin says. In the designer’s eyes, the key to a fulfilling space is to never get too used to the same thing. “I’m changing things all the time. My friends say, ‘Every time I go to your apartment, I never know what I’m going to discover because suddenly there’s a new chair.’”

“It will never be 100%: You’re always going to change something,” Jazmin says. “In the end, I think that’s what makes this space our space.”

Cheery yellow is one of a few color moments in the bedroom, where a blobby rug with pops of color anchors the bed. Kartell’s Componibili Bio tower in soft pink serves as a nightstand.

The bathroom scene is simple; it features small pieces of art like this photo of laundry drying on a clothesline taken and gifted by a friend.