Malika Novi is a product designer who lives and works in Milan. This originally Russian designer has designed some beautiful wallpapers and area rugs collections for Y-O2. She gets her inspiration from the people around her, nature, art, or even fashion. “I created this wallpaper inspired by Amsterdam— a city where it rains almost every day, yet instead of gloom, the rain brings a special kind of charm.
I remember one evening: I was walking across a bridge over the canal, and the warm glow of the streetlights reflected in the water, while the thin streams of rain turned the city into a living painting. Through the wet glass, everything became softer, blurred, and there was so much
peace and beauty in it. I have always been drawn to the Dutch Golden Age painting— its deep dark backgrounds, flowers glowing from within, the sense of stillness and timelessness.
I wanted to merge this eternal aesthetic with the emotions I felt in Amsterdam.
That’s why the flowers here echo old still lives, while the vertical lines are like streams
of rain, transforming the world outside the window, adding poetry and movement.

This wallpaper is about a city that knows how to stay beautiful even in the rain.
About the atmosphere where history and modernity blend together and about that
feeling when you just stand under the rain and sense it washing away your tiredness,
leaving only warm light and quiet inside.

And there is another personal detail in this work. In a museum in Milan,
I once came across a painting by Simone Del Tintore— an Italian master of the 17th
century. His flowers felt so vivid and profound that they became a source of inspiration
for some floral, elements in this design.
This way, Dutch painting, Amsterdam rain, and echoes of an Italian masterpiece came
together to create something entirely my own”.