Carla Sozzani on a life in art and fashion: ‘I wanted to change how magazines were made’

The author Louise Baring pursued Carla Sozzani for seven years to persuade her to co-create her biography. Sozzani finally relented, and the result is a new book, ‘Carla Sozzani, Art, Life, Fashion’, a portrait of the polymathic fashion editor, publisher and gallerist. As Sozzani told Baring: ‘There is only going to be one book, so everything had better be in there.’

The Thames & Hudson-published tome traces Sozzani and her sister Franca’s childhood from Mantua to Milan, and her first 50 years of shaping Italian fashion, as magazine editor for Chérie Moda, Italian Elle and Vogue Italia, then as gallerist, publisher and photography collector, founder of 10 Corso Como in Milan, the first concept store in the world (a claim that makes her shrug and smile), leader of the Fondazione Sozzani cultural space in Milan, and president of the Fondation Azzedine Alaïa in Paris.

‘Carla Sozzani, Art, Life, Fashion’

Sozzani began her fashion career in 1971 as a journalist at Chérie Moda, a magazine with a circulation of 250,000. The first international Italian fashion shows took place biannually at Florence’s Palazzo Pitti Sala Bianca ballroom. This proved an intense formative experience for the Bocconi graduate.

Jean Grogan: What do you remember of that time?

Carla Sozzani: There were ten fashion shows each day, all in the same place. It was very civilised. You could leave your handbag on your assigned seat and go for lunch, it was still there when you came back. The models did their own hair and make-up. Photos couldn’t be shot during the day because the clothes were needed for clients and buyers. We had to wait until nighttime to shoot and returned the clothes the following morning. It was an amazing time. It was my formation as an editor.

JG: Your father Gilberto (a civil engineer) instilled a strong work ethic in you and Franca, forbidding you both to ever use the phrases ‘I’m tired’ and ‘I have no time’.

CS: It was very useful advice for that time.

JG: The early 1980s were transformational for fashion in Italy. Globalisation transformed Milan from a financial and industrial capital to an international fashion capital. It supported a whole ecosystem of photographers, agencies, models, buyers and fashion publications. Media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi’s Canale 5 began broadcasting nationally in 1980. Luxury ready-to-wear labels such as Giorgio Armani, Gianfranco Ferré, Missoni, Krizia, Callaghan and Gianni Versace launched. In 1980, Franca was editor-in-chief of Lei and Per Lui, while you were editing the special issues of Vogue Italia. For six years, you both worked in Condé Nast on Via Ollearo in Milan one floor apart.

CS: We shared the same ideas, photo studio, photographers and models. People used to call it ‘the Sozzani building’. At Condé Nast, I was lucky to work with the most important photographers of the time. For the Vogue Italia special editions, I commissioned photographers who were not just fashion photographers. Sarah Moon, Norman Parkinson, Arthur Elgort, Hiro, Deborah Tuberville, Jeanloup Sieff and Robert Mapplethorpe. Many worked both for Franca and me, [like] Bruce Weber, Peter Lindbergh, Paulo Roversi, Herb Ritts and Koto Bolofo.

JG: Magazines were your obsession?

CS: I loved working at magazines so much I'd sometimes leave the office when morning was breaking. They took all my time and energy. I wanted to change how magazines were made.

JG: You met Azzedine Alaïa in 1980, you became lifelong friends. You featured him twice, in a 4-page editorial in Vogue Italia Pelle, then in a 6-page editorial shot by Horst P. Horst. Azzedine Alaïa said (in i-D, November 2013), ‘I have never met anyone like her. And I have met everyone, every editor, every stylist, but I have never met anyone like her. Really never.’

CS: I was almost fired by Vogue Italia for featuring Azzedine, an unknown designer – not even Italian! – who had no advertising in the magazine. The system was becoming more and more complicated and demanding. Freedom to produce editorials exactly as we wanted disappeared. I was fired from ELLE for not being commercial enough, for not exclusively featuring Italian designers. The magazine story was over for me, even though Condé Nast offered me a post at Vanity Fair. For me, when I have no more enthusiasm, it’s time to move on.

JG: Gianni Versace was very supportive, he said, ‘You and I, we know how to dare!’ Your breakaway project was the 1990 opening of your gallery, Galleria Carla Sozzani, over a Renault garage in Brera, the then very unfashionable outskirts of Milan.

CS: Editing was all I knew. Image is very important in fashion, when you think how many times brands became famous because of the photographer – Paolo Roversi for Romeo Gigli, Bruce Weber for Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein, Sarah Moon for Cacharel. The discipline and creativity of those great photographers, their eye so focused while their mind remained free, always engaged me. This passion ultimately led me to open a gallery dedicated to the art of photography.

We staged over 300 exhibitions, working closely with the photographer, with Helmut Newton, Steven Meisel, Don McCullin, Annie Leibovitz, Horst P. Horst, Robert Mapplethorpe, Hiro. Mounting an exhibition is the most exciting part.

[When the first Helmut Newton Ritratta di Donna (Portraits of Women) exhibition opened in 1994, so many visitors were queuing around the block that Sozzani had to ask the garage owner, Signor Marchese, if he would very kindly move his cars.]

JG: Your 10 Corso Como boutique was a revolution in retail. Why this opening?

CS: I found I was missing fashion. I wanted a three-dimensional magazine to bring images to life. The 1990s was a very exciting decade for fashion. Paris made a sensation with the launch of the Japanese designers. In Italy, we were tightly focused on Armani, Versace, Ferré, Valentino and Krizia. I created 10 Corso Como as a living magazine. At first, it was difficult. It took two full years before people understood the concept. I introduced Margiela, Comme des Garçons, Alaïa, and Prada – Miuccia was just starting out then.

JG: You have an extraordinary capacity to develop multiple projects simultaneously. What’s next?

CS: The future comes from the past, from all the experience I have had, and the incredible people I have met. Sometimes I wonder why I'm starting yet another project, but I never go looking for a project, projects come and find me.

There will always be creativity, but the big groups have such power today that a designer needs to be very brave to be independent. Sometimes, I prefer to see something that is not beautiful that we have seen many times, but original.

Carla Sozzani, Art, Life, Fashion, published by Thames & Hudson, is available from Waterstones, Barnes & Noble and Thames & Hudson’s website.