The Castiglioni family has long epitomized Milanese style, articulated through the singular language of Consuelo Castiglioni’s Marni, and continued in her daughter Carolina Castiglioni’s Plan C — a brand founded in 2018, not long after the family sold Marni to Renzo Rosso’s OTB group. Carolina herself is an icon of the Milanese aesthetic, with her freewheeling mix of bold colors, oversized silhouettes, clashing bourgeois codes, and liberal borrowing from men’s closets. It’s the same assured eclecticism found throughout Plan C’s men’s and women’s collections.
In 2025, Carolina opened Plan C’s first flagship on Via Manzoni in the high-fashion heart of Milan. The vivid-toned space, designed in collaboration with Milan’s (Ab)Normal architecture studio, takes its own unconventional approach to retail, featuring a substantial bookshop and reading room alongside a curated selection of Carolina’s selected brands — as well as Plan C’s own pieces. Like the Castiglioni family’s stylistic heritage, the boutique fuses intellectualism, architectural acumen, and an exuberant collage of fashion — the very embodiment of milanesità.
See also: Heads or Tails? The Double-Sided Fashion Coin of Milan
How would you define style?
For me, style means showing creativity through unexpected details — an unusual mix of colors, shapes, or anything that catches the eye. It’s that off-kilter touch that gives identity to your look, even when the rest of what you’re wearing is relatively neutral. Whatever it is, no matter how extravagant, it has to feel like a genuine expression of myself so I’m completely at ease wearing it.
Do you collect anything?
During a high school trip, I visited the Vitra Design Museum in Switzerland and bought my first miniature chair there — an orange Verner Panton model. Since then, I’ve amassed a pretty serious collection of Vitra miniature chairs. I have around 50 displayed in my hallway in chronological order, and just purchased another Verner Panton model — this time in yellow.
What are some items you always have in your bag when you travel?
First of all, a tape measure — the soft kind for measuring curves. I’m always measuring things, especially now with the Plan C store. When I find pieces I want for the space, I measure them on the spot to see where they could go. I also carry a Smythson Panama diary with blue pages and its own slim pencil — I prefer writing things by hand, and I’m not big on email. And hand cream is essential: I use a cocoa butter formula from Tamburins — a South Korean brand — with a beautiful scent.
Can you share your favorite hotels?
My absolute favorite is the Park Hyatt Tokyo — it offers perfect tranquility in the heart of a giant metropolis, and everything from the architecture to the beds is beautiful. They even provide guests with Aesop products in the rooms. A completely different experience is the lively Soho House in Berlin, where every room is unique, and discovering the furnishings on your own becomes part of the pleasure of the experience. And I just returned from the Masseria San Domenico in Puglia, a gorgeous seaside palazzo converted into a hotel, where they have a pool as big as a lake, an excellent spa, and service that truly amazed me, with staff in these lovely checked dresses who all know your name and what your itinerary is.
What matters to you?
Family, without question. My greatest joy has been bringing together my family with my new partner’s family. We moved in together not long ago, both of us with our teenage children. Now our two boys share one bedroom while our two girls share the other — a true blending of the families in each room. We’re an unconventional family, but we’ve created our own new dynamic together.
