“Via Montenapoleone, il salotto di  Milano, ritrovo delle signore dell'élite della città.” It was 1954 when Dutch born singer Peter Van Wood sang his ode to the beating heart of Milan, the  spine of what was already the centre of the city’s fashion district, the “quadrilatero della moda.” 

If we want to  be historically accurate, we should say that the very same area was already known as “quadrilatero” (quadrangle) as far back as the Middle Ages, when its boundaries were marked by ancient Roman walls and, on one side, by  the Seveso River that today runs underground.