Plastic (Club)

Plastic

Address	120 Viale Umbria (1980–2012) 15 Via Gargano (2012–2025)
Location	Milan, Italy
Type	Nightclub
Opened	December 1980
Closed	2025

Plastic was a nightclub in Milan, Italy, active from December 1980 until 2025. Over more than four decades, it became one of the best-known institutions of Milanese nightlife and a meeting point between underground culture, music, fashion, contemporary art and the city's LGBTQ community.

The club was founded by DJ and art director Nicola Guiducci and Lino Nisi, with Lino's brother Lucio Nisi taking over shortly afterwards and becoming one of the figures most closely associated with the venue. Rosangela "Pinky" Rossi and DJ Sergio Tavelli later joined its core management and artistic circle.

Originally located at 120 Viale Umbria, Plastic became known internationally for its unconventional clientele, experimental musical programming and highly selective door policy. Its guests over the decades included musicians and artists such as Madonna, Andy Warhol, Freddie Mercury, Prince, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Keith Haring, Grace Jones and Sting; fashion figures including Stefano Gabbana, Vivienne Westwood, Karl Lagerfeld, Donatella Versace, Miuccia Prada and Elio Fiorucci; contemporary artists Maurizio Cattelan and Francesco Vezzoli; and writers such as Tea Hačić and Nicolò Michielin. , who described Plastic as follows in his novel Middle Class Heroes:

I came to discover that the place was the Babylon of everyone who mattered; Plastic was to nightlife what Las Vegas was to gambling, or Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre to ballet, or the Maracanã to football. More than a club, it was a temple for everyone for whom the night was not just the night, but something more. Everyone had passed through those sweaty walls, complicitly silent about the subdued reality you returned to when you stepped outside. Madonna, Andy Warhol, Mickey Rourke, Damon Albarn, Elton John, Adam Green, Grace Jones, Sting, Naomi Campbell, artists, television personalities, poets, movie stars, and every single designer who had ever designed even just a T-shirt had been there, and the list went on. Talented people as well as incorrigible drifters abandoned to their vices, losing themselves in one another. Inside, however, as happened in the Bacchanalia of Ancient Rome, social roles mattered very little; being yourself, if you were the right person, was enough. And if you weren't, well, you could always become someone else.

— Nicolò Michielin, Middle Class Heroes

In 2009, Plastic received the Ambrogino d'oro, one of the highest civic honours awarded by the City of Milan, in recognition of its contribution to the city's cultural life.

In 2012 the club left its historic Viale Umbria premises and relocated to 15 Via Gargano, where it continued operating until its closure in 2025. Its final party took place during the night of 28–29 June 2025, before the club formally announced in September that it would not reopen.

History

Foundation and the Viale Umbria years

Plastic opened in Milan in December 1980, at 120 Viale Umbria.

Its origins were linked to Nicola Guiducci, a DJ, art director and central figure in the development of the club's musical identity, and Lino Nisi. Lino was soon succeeded by his brother Lucio Nisi, who would remain closely associated with Plastic for almost four decades.

The club emerged at a moment in which Milanese nightlife was undergoing profound transformation. Plastic distinguished itself from more conventional discotheques by looking toward the alternative scenes of New York, London and Paris, absorbing elements of punk, post-punk, new wave, glam, electronic music and queer club culture.

From its earliest years, its identity was based not only on music but on the people who inhabited the space. Fashion, appearance, experimentation and self-invention became part of the experience of entering the club itself.

An early invitation for its opening period encouraged guests to favour dark clothing, heavy make-up and, above all, extravagance, establishing an aesthetic ethos that would remain associated with Plastic throughout its history.

Its original premises were relatively small, divided into different environments that eventually acquired their own distinct musical and social identities. The intimacy of the space became part of the club's reputation and contributed to the sense of community surrounding it.

Door policy and subcultural identity

One of Plastic's defining characteristics was its notoriously selective entrance policy.

Admission was not conceived simply around wealth, celebrity or conventional social status. Door selectors instead evaluated whether prospective guests were considered compatible with the character of the club. Clothing, attitude, personality and originality could therefore become more decisive than economic or professional status.

This practice made the entrance to Plastic both celebrated and controversial. Former members of its staff later described the apparent contradiction behind the policy as a form of exclusion intended, at least in part, to protect the freedom of the community inside.

The club became particularly important to Milan's LGBTQ+ community, while never defining itself exclusively as a gay club. Queer identities, drag performers, artists, fashion figures, students, musicians and people from otherwise very different social backgrounds shared the same space.

Plastic consequently developed a reputation as a place where conventional distinctions of class, profession, sexuality and social standing temporarily became less important than individual identity and participation in the club's culture.

Retrospectives on the club have noted that queer identities and unconventional forms of gender expression had formed part of Plastic's social environment for decades before gaining broader mainstream visibility.

International reputation

During the 1980s and 1990s, Plastic became increasingly known outside Italy.

A number of internationally prominent musicians, artists and cultural figures visited the club while in Milan. Among those documented as having attended were Madonna, Freddie Mercury, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Grace Jones, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Boy George and Prince.

The presence of celebrities did not transform Plastic into a conventional VIP club. Accounts of the venue repeatedly emphasised that famous visitors shared the space with students, club kids, artists, drag performers and members of Milan's alternative communities.

Keith Haring and Grace Jones became particularly associated with the mythology of the club, while Elio Fiorucci, himself deeply connected to the international artistic and nightlife scenes of New York and Milan, was one of Plastic's most prominent supporters.

This combination of underground culture and internationally recognised figures became one of the central paradoxes of Plastic: a venue capable of attracting global celebrities while continuing to cultivate the identity of a subcultural club.

Music and club nights

Music remained at the centre of Plastic's identity throughout its existence.

Nicola Guiducci developed an eclectic approach to programming that could move between punk, post-punk, indie rock, electronic music, French and German releases, Italian popular music and unexpected historical recordings.

Rather than maintaining a single musical identity, different nights and rooms developed distinct aesthetics.

House of Bordello

One of Plastic's most famous nights was House of Bordello, launched in 1997 and closely associated with Sergio Tavelli and performer La Stryxia.

The night became an important institution within Milanese queer nightlife. Its musical identity deliberately recontextualised Italian popular music, particularly songs from the 1960s through the 1990s, within an environment of drag performance, camp aesthetics and club culture.

Artists such as Mina, Loredana Bertè and other figures of Italian popular music were juxtaposed with the visual and performative language of contemporary nightlife.

House of Bordello became particularly associated with the Saturday night programme and was one of the events that helped bridge Plastic's underground identity with Milan's fashion and cultural establishment.

London Loves

From 2004 to 2014, Friday nights were strongly associated with London Loves, an event founded and artistically directed by Stefano Tarantini, also known as Dorian Gray, who later founded fashion label M1992 and served as co-creative director of Borbonese.

London Loves focused on the international indie, post-punk and alternative scenes that shaped much of the fashion and youth culture of the 2000s.

The event hosted emerging bands and artists and became closely connected to the aesthetics then circulating between independent music and fashion, particularly the visual world associated with the indie-rock revival of the period.

The night attracted a younger generation of musicians, models, fashion students, photographers and creatives and became one of Plastic's principal points of contact with the international indie scene.

Match à Paris and Club Domani

On Sundays, Match à Paris concentrated activity in the club's privé, with Nicola Guiducci selecting music that often combined indie and electronic recordings, with particular attention to French and German releases.

In 2014, Club Domani, created by Sergio Tavelli and Andrea Ratti, became the principal Saturday-night project at Plastic.

Club Domani continued the club's relationship with queer nightlife and performance while introducing a new generation of DJs, performers and clubgoers. Its programming combined disco, house and electronic music with the eclecticism traditionally associated with Plastic.

Fashion, art and literary culture

Plastic occupied an unusual position between underground culture and the international fashion system.

Milan's status as one of the world's principal fashion capitals meant that designers, models, stylists, photographers and editors increasingly encountered a culture inside Plastic that had initially developed independently of the established fashion industry.

Over the years, the club was frequented by prominent figures from fashion including Stefano Gabbana, Vivienne Westwood, Karl Lagerfeld, Donatella Versace, Miuccia Prada and Elio Fiorucci.

Fiorucci was particularly closely connected with the club. His own cultural world had already brought together fashion, pop art and New York nightlife, and accounts of Plastic recall his connection with international friends and artists including Andy Warhol and Keith Haring.

The relationship between the club and contemporary art was similarly significant. Among the artists associated with Plastic were Maurizio Cattelan and Francesco Vezzoli.

Vezzoli described Plastic as the only nightclub where he could still find the dirty, emotional and intense qualities he associated with pre-social-media club culture, and emphasised the central importance of its musical selection.

Plastic was therefore not merely frequented by members of different creative industries; it became one of the spaces through which those industries encountered one another in Milan.

The club was also associated with writers such as Tea Hačić and Nicolò Michielin. Michielin's novel Middle Class Heroes is partly set against sleepless nights at Plastic, according to its publisher, and contains his description of the club quoted above.

Michielin later described Plastic to Vogue Italia as a crossroads of lives and desires and as a place that had become inseparable from the memories of the people who spent their nights there.

The club's role in literature was not limited to Middle Class Heroes. Retrospectives have noted the substantial body of books, magazines, documentaries, photographs and first-person accounts through which Plastic documented and interpreted its own history.

Plastic and Milan's cultural transformation

Plastic's development paralleled the transformation of Milan between the early 1980s and the twenty-first century.

When the club opened, Milan was entering a period of accelerated cultural and economic change. Fashion, design, advertising, television and publishing were becoming increasingly central to the city's international identity, while Plastic emerged from an alternative milieu that remained partly outside that establishment.

Plastic remained partly external to that establishment while simultaneously becoming one of the places where its protagonists spent their nights.

This produced an unusual social environment. Fashion designers could share a dance floor with unknown students; established artists could encounter young performers; celebrities could attend without necessarily becoming the centre of attention.

The absence, during much of Plastic's history, of smartphones and social media also contributed to its mythology. Accounts of the club have emphasised both the relative privacy afforded to public figures and the importance of physical nightlife as a meeting point before online social networks became dominant.

In this sense, the club functioned not only as entertainment but as an informal cultural institution, connecting communities and creative disciplines that might otherwise have remained separate.

Civic recognition

In 2009, the City of Milan awarded Plastic the Ambrogino d'oro, one of the city's principal civic honours.

The official motivation recognised Plastic as more than simply a discotheque, identifying it as a meeting place for creativity and new trends and acknowledging its contribution to Milan over several generations.

The recognition was significant in the history of the club. A venue that had originated within alternative and queer nightlife had, after almost three decades, become formally acknowledged by the city as part of Milan's cultural life.

The award also reflected Plastic's unusual ability to move between counterculture and establishment without entirely abandoning its original identity.

This Is Plastic

In 2006, the club's first 25 years were documented in the photographic book This Is Plastic: 25 Years of Hard Clubbing, by Nicola Guiducci, Lucio Nisi and Elio Fiorucci, published by Echo Communication.

The 160-page volume collected photographs and archival material relating to the club's history and clientele. Members of Plastic's own community contributed to the project, reinforcing the role of photography as an internal record of a culture that had often resisted conventional media documentation.

Fiorucci contributed reflections on the club and its relationship to the creative worlds of Milan and New York.

The book subsequently became an important visual archive of the venue's first decades.

In 2014, director Patrizio Saccò released the documentary This Is Plastic.

The film reconstructed more than three decades of the club's history through interviews, archive material and accounts from figures connected with Plastic, including Nicola Guiducci, Lucio Nisi, Pinky, Sergio Tavelli and Elio Fiorucci.

It also documented the end of the Viale Umbria era and the club's transition to its second location.

Relocation to Via Gargano

In 2012, Plastic left its historic premises at 120 Viale Umbria after more than thirty years.

The club subsequently reopened at 15 Via Gargano, in the southern part of Milan. The new venue was larger and became informally known as Plastic Palace.

The relocation represented one of the most significant changes in the club's history. The intimate architecture of Viale Umbria had contributed heavily to its mythology, and reproducing the atmosphere of the original venue in a larger space presented a challenge.

Nevertheless, many of the principal figures responsible for Plastic's identity remained involved, allowing the club to maintain continuity across generations.

The Via Gargano years saw the gradual emergence of a younger audience while retaining elements of the earlier Plastic culture. The musical programme evolved toward contemporary forms of disco, house and electronic club music while maintaining rooms and events dedicated to the eclectic selections for which the venue was known.

Death of Lucio Nisi

Lucio Nisi died in Milan in November 2019, aged 71.

Although the club had initially been created by Nicola Guiducci and Lucio's brother Lino, Lucio rapidly became its long-standing patron and one of the personalities most strongly identified with Plastic.

His death prompted tributes from Milanese cultural figures and institutions. Milan mayor Giuseppe Sala described Nisi as one of the people responsible for bringing new styles and international artists to the city.

Plastic continued operating after his death under the remaining members of its long-established team.

The final years

During the 2010s and early 2020s, Plastic faced transformations affecting nightlife internationally, including the growing role of social media in the relationship between clubs, identity and visibility.

Plastic nonetheless remained active and continued to attract new generations. Its later programming combined the historical identities associated with Nicola Guiducci and Sergio Tavelli with DJs, performers and creative figures from contemporary Milanese nightlife.

Its importance to younger queer communities remained particularly visible. Retrospectives published during its later years and after its closure repeatedly identified the club as a place in which people who felt marginalised elsewhere could construct communities and experiment with identity.

Closure

Plastic held its final party during the night of 28–29 June 2025, coinciding with Milan Pride weekend.

In early September 2025, reports began circulating that the club would not reopen for the following season. Plastic subsequently confirmed its definitive closure through its official social-media channels.

The announcement ended approximately 45 years of activity.

Its closure received extensive coverage in the Italian press and was widely interpreted as the end of a significant chapter in Milanese nightlife.

Italian media described Plastic variously as a symbol of Milanese underground culture, a centre of alternative club culture and one of the venues that had most effectively connected the city's queer, musical, artistic and fashion communities.

Legacy

Plastic's cultural significance rested partly on its unusual longevity.

Unlike clubs whose identities were tied to a single musical genre or generation, Plastic survived several major transformations of nightlife culture.

It opened during the post-punk and new-wave era, experienced the emergence of house and electronic music, became intertwined with Milan's fashion system, provided a stage for queer and drag culture, participated in the indie revival of the 2000s and adapted to twenty-first-century club culture.

Across these periods, the club maintained an emphasis on selection, individual expression and the coexistence of different social and cultural groups.

Its history has consequently been interpreted as inseparable from the evolution of modern Milan itself.

The club connected the underground and the establishment without entirely collapsing the distinction between them. International celebrities could enter the same rooms as unknown artists and students, while people who were marginalised in conventional social environments could become central figures inside the club.

For this reason, Plastic has often been remembered less as a conventional entertainment venue than as a community and cultural laboratory.

After its closure, former guests, DJs, artists, writers, designers and journalists described the venue as a formative space whose influence extended beyond nightlife into fashion, music, visual culture and personal identity.

Its history remains documented through photographs, publications, the 2014 documentary This Is Plastic, journalistic retrospectives and the memories of successive generations who attended it.

Further reading

• Guiducci, Nicola; Nisi, Lucio; Fiorucci, Elio (2006). This Is Plastic: 25 Years of Hard Clubbing (in italiano). Echo Communication. ISBN 9788873680390. Search this book on
• Michielin, Nicolò (2022). Middle Class Heroes (in italiano). Sandro Teti Editore. ISBN 9788831492553. Search this book on

Filmography

• This Is Plastic, directed by Patrizio Saccò (2014), documentary, 60 minutes.

See also

• Nightlife in Milan
• LGBTQ culture in Italy
• Club culture
• Italian fashion
• Elio Fiorucci
• Andy Warhol
• Keith Haring

Category:Nightclubs in Italy Category:Culture in Milan Category:LGBTQ culture in Italy Category:1980 establishments in Italy Category:2025 disestablishments in Italy

References

This article "Plastic (Club)" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Plastic (Club). Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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