In the La Brera design district during Milan Design Week, Baccarat housed an exhibit of star designers who lent their vision to this beacon of iconic elegance and fractured light. The shifting soundscapes and the cascading rooms were like a beautiful haunted house, shadows on the wall conjuring dreams instead of nightmares.

The first lamp pictured is called Sora created by award-winning Kyoto born designer and craftsperson Eriko Horiki. She applies her skills and love of traditional Japanese Washi paper to her Senritsu (meaning melody or shiver) lantern in an east meets west glowing orb.  The second is a highly conceptual candelabra chandelier by Phillippe Starck called the "Marie Coquine" which is topped by an umbrella and ends in a wooden handle.  The structure itself rests on a tripod on wheels balanced by way of a punching bag. Not your run-of-the-mill construction. In the backdrop in this room, you could hear the sound of rain and thunder in the near darkness. In the third, shadows on the wall undulate like diamonds in a cave. These are the lamps of whimsical Italian designer Michele de Lucchi who through his long career where night has been his inspiration has designed for Memphis, Artemide, Olivetti, Deutsch Bank, Mandarina Duck and others. The light forest at the end imbued with the soft sound of crickets is the Jardin de Cristal by Yann Kersalé, a French lighting designer who has lent his hand to projects as diverse as Museé Quai Branley to the Lyon Opera House to Barcelona's Agbar Tower, as well as countless other prestigious buildings around the world from Japan to Quatar.

Other designers creating for Baccarat in the exhibit but not pictured here were Jaime Hayon, Arik Levy, Alain Moatti, and Henri Rivière.

Another highlight from Rossana Orlandi in Milan last week was the Sé collection with designer Jamie Hayon, exhibited in Spazio Rossana Orlandi which was reminiscent of the first three seasons of Mad Men, while also being wholly modern with a color palette ranging from white to blue-grey to gold and a balance of decidedly contemporary lines and shapes mixed in with mushroom cloud modernism.

An extension of Hayon's existing collection for the luxury brand, the new designs include lacquered solid wood and marble-topped side tables which we especially loved. The whole collection is the result of an idea from founder Pavlo Schtakleff to create 'haute couture' furniture that embodies "comfortable luxury", pieces with a strong identity but classic enough to be versatile. And it's all produced by genuine French craftsmen and artisans, bien sur...

It may still be a chilly April in New York, but Spring has finally sprung (inside at least) for the city-dwellers: Love Adorned on New York's Elizabeth Street has just launched a display of terrariums in hand-made planters in blown glass, poured cement and thrown ceramic, containing succulents perfect for thriving indoors with us.

Love Adorned is a modern-day cabinet of curiosities in the form of a lifestyle concept store, with vintage display cases filled with interesting books, jewellery, lotions, potions and ceramics sourced by like-minded friends from all over the world. It's creator, Lori Leven of the city's famous tattoo destination, New York Adorned, has fashioned a home for pieces that address "beauty and utility" in our ever-changing and challenging lives, with all the tools a contemporary urbanite may need on her travels.  The store opened in December 2010 and changes its curated selection of pieces to suit its seasonal themes. New York Adorned's tattoo artists have also set up a pop-up space inside, for visitors that want to go home wearing something a little more permanent, while their flagship store is being renovated.

Find treasures in Love Adorned like Laura Zindel's ceramics from Vermont, with her hand-drawn naturalist illustrations that are silkscreened and transferred onto her ceramic homewares. Then there are the whimsical porcelain milk bottles from Alyssa Ettinger: found originally in abandoned dumps and urban vintage flea markets, then cast in porcelain to be cared for forever after.