Milan Solid Walnut Full Length Mirror

Details

Milan leans against a wall and refuses to sit still. Start at the floor, where the frame closes in a flat base edge and takes the weight, then follow the left side up: the walnut swells, presses inward about halfway, and the opening pinches shut exactly where the wood is heaviest. Thicker frame, tighter glass. The right side answers with two soft bulges, one high and one low, and the top finishes as a single arc climbing toward the right corner.

Underneath all that movement the outline is still rectangular. Four sides, upright, taller than it is wide, and every one of those four sides wavy rather than ruled. That is why it reads as a piece of furniture rather than a shape you have to build a wall around. The rippled inner edge repeats the outer one, so the glass is cut to the same restless line.

The frame sits forward of the glass

The section is rounded the whole way around. No sharp corner anywhere on the piece, no flat face, no chamfer. The surface rolls instead, and a single soft line of light travels along the ridge as you walk past it. The finish is matte, so what you notice is the shape and not a shine sliding over it.

The mirror is set back into the wood and the walnut stands in front of it, a raised profile against the wall, which is why you register the depth of the frame before you register your own reflection. That only works in solid stock. A curve this deep pressed into a veneered panel gives itself away at every turn. Here the color carries unbroken around the whole loop, mid brown with a red lean, the grain quiet and low in contrast, running lengthwise with the curve instead of across it.

Made in Konya, after you order

Mehmet Ali has been shaping wood for more than thirty-five years, and every piece leaves his own bench in Konya. Mirrors are the newest thing to come out of the workshop, two years of them so far, and the workshop itself goes back a great deal further.

There is no stock to pull from. Milan begins after your order does: the size and the finish get settled first, then the boards are chosen, which is why the piece that arrives carries its own tone and figure rather than matching these photographs exactly.

Choosing a height

Nine sizes, and the proportion holds across all of them, so the silhouette you see here is the one you get at any height. The tall sizes are not stretched, only larger.

• 75 x 32 cm (30 x 13 inch) and 90 x 39 cm (35 x 15 inch), for a short run of wall
• 125 x 54 cm (50 x 22 inch) and 150 x 65 cm (60 x 26 inch), the sizes most rooms take easily
• 200 x 86 cm (79 x 34 inch) and 225 x 97 cm (89 x 39 inch), when you want the walnut to carry the room

Because Milan rests on the floor and tips back into the wall, leave a little clear floor in front of it as well as height above.

Packing and sending

So far the workshop has sent work to around twenty countries. Each mirror goes out padded and boxed, worldwide, under a tracking number. Keep the walnut out of damp air, and a soft dry cloth over the frame now and then is all it asks for. Caught between two sizes? Send us the wall measurement before you order and we will tell you which one we would stand there.

Milan is the squared-off one among the walnut floor mirrors. Drop the four sides and you have Elara, the same standing height carried on a closed hourglass ring, satin rather than matte, so the light slides along the curve instead of staying put. For one event on a single edge rather than movement around all four, Siena takes a deep notch out of the right side and leaves the rest calm.