Iannilli Valeria Maria

Architect, currently Full Professor of Design at Politecnico di Milano.

Research

Her research initially developed at the intersection of architecture and industrial design, with a focus on retail design as a relational space between enterprise, product systems, and the market. Informed by humanistic and systemic approaches, she interprets retail as a narrative system capable of constructing meaning and activating cultural dynamics. Within this framework, retail evolves from a site of consumption into an interactive device, integrated within a phygital dimension and characterised by omnichannel continuity across physical and digital contexts. In recent developments, her research has focused on sustainability transitions in fashion, retail, and service design systems, exploring the role of design as a lever for the transition towards circular models. Retail is thus reconceived as an activator of sustainable processes, through design-driven models grounded in productservice systems and servitization logics (SPOKE 5/PNRR MUSA). In parallel, she investigates living labs as infrastructures for transformative learning, co-creation, and open innovation, wherein design practice enables the reframing of participants' interpretive frameworks. She is co-founder of the Fashion & Textile Living Lab "Too Cool to Go Wasted", a design-driven research environment for experimenting with circular solutions (interdepartmental project SPOKE3/PNRR MUSA). Taken together, these activities constitute a design ecosystem in which retail, services, and living labs converge as an enabling infrastructure for sustainability transitions.

Teaching

She is a Full Professor at the School of Design, Politecnico di Milano. She currently teaches Fashion Retail Experience within the Master's programme in Design for the Fashion System and lectures in numerous postgraduate courses and master's programmes, both in Italy and internationally.

Institutional Roles

She currently serves as Coordinator of the "Design and Culture" Section, a body supporting the development of the scientific programme of the Department of Design; co-founder and Scientific Director of the Living Lab "Too Cool to Go Wasted"; co-founder and scientific coordinator, together with Alessandra Spagnoli, of the Retail Experience Lab research group and the MADEBACK Festival; and co-founder of the research collective "Fashion in Process", based at the Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano. Previously, she served as Chair of the Fashion Design Study Programmes (Bachelor's and Master's degrees) at the School of Design (2019-2024), Member of the Scientific Board and Scientific Director of the International Master in Fashion Direction at Milano Fashion Institute (2021-2024), Chair of the Joint Committee of the School of Design (2017-2019), Delegate to the Scientific Commission of the Department of Design for the "Design and Culture" Research Section (2013-2016), and Scientific Coordinator of the Research and Teaching Unit in Fashion and Textile Design (2011-2013).