Top-quality, award-winning, solid wood furniture

Milla & Milli is an award-winning Croatian furniture brand. It was founded in 2017, and, since then, has launched several meticulously designed and crafted furniture series. The entire aesthetic carries respect for the material: high-quality solid wood. Because the brand lives off natural resources, it is environmentally conscious and oriented and strives to give back to nature by planting a tree on behalf of each customer. The brand presented themself for the first time at Ambienta, Croatia’s most significant international furniture and interior decoration fair in Zagreb, in 2018. They exhibited the Offset Furniture Series and were awarded the Mobil Optimum Award for the most successful wood industry products. It was an instant success, the experts and enthusiasts praised the furniture.

The brand was established by Mundus Viridis, a wood processing factory from Gradec near Vrbovec. Currently, the company exports 95 per cent of its products to European Union countries, mainly Germany, France, Italy and Austria. They produce solid panels, sawn timber, pallets and firewood, solid wood furniture and staircases. The material used is mostly beech and oak.

Milla & Milli is the brand of Ksenija Pašalić, founder and CEO, who, together with the designer Maša Vukmanović, developed the idea. Ksenija said: ‘We have been collaborating with Maša for 16 years on various design projects, and she has become part of our business family.’

Maša decided to invite her two design colleagues to help her with the task, Jelena Lukač Kirš and Jakov Šrajer, and the three of them started designing for Milla & Milli under the name Thinkobjects.

‘Throughout our collaboration with Maša, we dreamed about what we are doing now. We are very much looking forward to each finished product, and there is an indescribable feeling of joy of creation’, said Ksenija when we asked about how the collaboration started.

The brand’s most significant success is Waves, produced in 2018. With Waves, Milla & Milli became globally recognised after winning one of the world’s most prestigious design awards – Red Dot for Product Design 2019 for the liquor cabinet. The German Design Council gives the award, and that year they were the best among five thousand other entrants! The same cabinet just recently won a German Design Award 2021 for product design also.

All the furniture is made from massive wood, mainly oak and walnut, with FSC Certificate which ensures that products come from responsibly managed forests. They use every part of the tree; the scraps left are used for pallets by their mother company. 

For some collections, like the latest Bloom, launched in 2020, solid wood is combined with marble, giving the pieces timeless elegance and durability. Bloom mimics a flower’s shape and consists of a dining table, a coffee table that comes in two sizes, and a sideboard. The end products are functional and massive yet, at the same time, give the impression of lightness, and there is nothing one would add or subtract. That impression is actually objective seeing as the Bloom series is the Winner of the 2020 Archiproducts Design Awards.

The production is mainly focused on coffee tables, dining tables, and side cabinets, but Milla & Milli have extended their offerings to include small objects. 

Together with Thinkobjects, they made light pendants Ola, a combination of wood and steel with a white or black finish, blended in one continuous curve. The Ola lamp is a BigSee Wood Design Award winner for 2018.

One can also find Foodwod series of homeware that compliments the furniture, for example, Waves placemats made from beech coming in two sizes and three colours.

When we asked about their plans, we found out that they have been working on the new series since Autumn and are experimenting with a new way of creating. Another big step for the brand is planned for 2022 when they aim to open the first Milla & Milli store in Zagreb.