Since 1988, Franca Sozzani has been the fearless editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia, the fashion bible that is seen as the most audacious of all Vogues. The magazine has several offshoots, such as the pleasantly obscure, interior periodical Casa Vogue, which is a welcome antipole to so many stale design magazines today. Franca’s older sister Carla is the founder of 10 Corso Como, the luxury department store in Milan. Together, the Sozzani sisters basically rule Italian fashion.
Carlo Antonelli: My first question isn’t about Vogue Italia but about one of its side projects that we all love dearly. How do you go about making Casa Vogue?
Franca Sozzani: You know what makes Casa Vogue good? The fact that it doesn’t have a script. I love it and I love making it. We just do what feels right. There is no big Casa Vogue plan. The idea behind it is simple: it is what homes tell us about their owners, not about their architects. You live in your home in the same way you wear your clothes. Personally, I wouldn’t even allow an architect to design the tiles in my bathroom – it would drive me mad. You have to do your own thing, choose the things you personally like. I would never hire an architect to design my house, in the same way that I would never wear clothes that are recognizably from one particular designer. I don’t like wearing somebody else’s style. The great thing about Casa Vogue is that we have no restrictions. And I’m not talking about commercial restrictions in terms of advertising: I mean even in terms of the concept. If we decide we like trashy homes, or shabby homes, or something else, we’ll make it happen. Its lack of structure is a way of life.
Which is similar to your own way of life?
Yes.
How would you define that? Is it a search for natural beauty?
Yes, and allowing things to take their own shape.
Casa Vogue also seems to have an obsession with a certain Oscar Wildean type of upper class: with disgraced nobility. Some might even define it as morbid.
It’s because I believe it takes time to acquire taste. It doesn’t take money, thank God.
And when did you acquire taste?
I don’t know. If I think of my sister and how she has turned out today, maybe we’ve both had it since our childhood.
What was your parents’ house like?
At one point my father developed a love for everything ultramodern, for Swedish design. When we moved to Milan we lived in a skyscraper, which was considered strange at the time.
You came from Mantua, am I correct?
Yes, but we only lived there when we were young. We studied in Milan, and then I went to France and Carla moved to Turin. Until we both ended up back in Milan.
So when did you realize that your personal taste could become your job? Was working at Vogue something that you had planned, or was it just one of those things that happen in life?
I had no idea. I have a degree in literature, philosophy and Germanic philology. To be honest, I never thought I would even work at all. I never saw myself as a career girl.
Great! Finally somebody who dares to admit it. How did you see yourself?
I saw myself with children, playing golf…
Married?
Yes. I married when I was 20. I thought that was my life. Why do anything else?
It was your mother’s and your grandmothers’ life too.
My mother has so much energy even though she’s really old now. We went out for dinner recently and some men at the table next to us said, “How wonderful for your mother to go out at night.” They thought she was 82. But she’s 97! They couldn’t believe it. So then she stood up, leaning on her cane, and said, “I haven’t led a very tiring life.”
Ha ha!
It certainly helps your wellbeing.
So what happened?
I married when I was 20, and I got divorced after three months. I thought I needed to do something more intelligent.
I don’t want to get too personal, but a divorce after three months sounds like a big deal for somebody from a family such as yours, in Italy back then.
Are you kidding? Obviously I had the vows annulled by the Sacred Roman Rota.
Wow. Scandal.
Scandalissimo! But I knew it wasn’t the life I wanted. So I went for a job interview and they gave me the job. And from then on I started rising through the ranks. I worked at Vogue Bambini, I was editor of Lei when I was 29 and Per Lui when I was 31. I was quick.
Was it a very natural climb?
Well, I was also very lucky. You know, some people left at the right time. In life you have to be lucky. You can be a genius, but if you aren’t in the right place at the right time, genius is worthless. When Oliviero Toscani and Gisella Borioli left Vogue, I ended up there by myself, with just an assistant and the switchboard operator.
And then you messed up Vogue…
It was already a mess.
But you messed it up even more.
Well, I changed everything. They wanted Vogue to remain what it was: a trade-only magazine where everything was decided in a very structured way: one Krizia outfit, one Armani outfit, one Versace outfit, one Ferré outfit. The making of my first cover is a fantastic story. We had to choose between a Valentino dress and a Lancetti dress. So Giancarlo Giammetti, Valentino’s partner, said to me, “Please give it to the one that deserves it the most.” So I gave it to Yves Saint Laurent, ha ha! It was a riot!
Where you were a punk avant la lettre?
I love destroying things, breaking with the past.
You appointed Steven Meisel as the photographer to shoot all the Vogue covers. How long has he been doing that now?
It’s something like 22 years now, since I first discovered him. I felt like I had no other choice. Because you either force a magazine to get a very specific image, or you’ll never get one. You could maybe achieve it by using a group of photographers, but I chose to use just one. And I used models instead of actresses. It was around the start of the ‘supermodel’ era.
Where does your love for printed media come from?
For me it was all about photography.
It doesn’t come from a childhood passion for magazines.
Not at all. I used to consume fashion itself, not magazines. I was obsessed with Yves Saint Laurent.
And eventually you went on to – please excuse my language – bust some balls on the international market.
Don’t forget that I am working in Italian, a language that is only spoken in Italy. I mean, people don’t even speak Italian in Brooklyn anymore. It’s only spoken here, which is a bit restricting. If you’re lucky enough to speak English, well, then you can communicate with the whole world, from China to India … I can only speak to Italians. That’s it. So the only way we could speak to everyone was through images, and that’s why I gave photography so much more space than words. Also, if you want an image that speaks to everyone, it has to be impossible to ignore. It has to be much, much more extreme than the normal boring images that everyone is used to. I think that’s what led to the explosion of Vogue Italia.
Did you ever feel like you were crashing a party where you weren’t exactly welcome?
You know what? It isn’t so much that I don’t care at all, but I really don’t care that much about other people’s opinions. Really. You can’t be loved by everyone. It’s impossible.
It must take a lot of courage.
Of course. And I am sure I published a lot of ugly things, extreme things, or simply things that didn’t turn out well. But they always had an element of research, and courage. Even when the things we ran were so ugly I didn’t even like them myself, I still ran them. It was a way of saying: “Let’s try to move forward. It might not be right for now, but it might point us in the right direction.”
A lack of fear is something you appreciate in general, right?
Yes, absolutely. You should never be afraid of change, of going too far, of facing things. There are two things I never lose: I never lose my courage, and I never lose sleep. Even in the most hectic moments of my life I try sleep twelve hours per day.
Twelve hours? Always?
Well, at least nine hours. And sometimes I manage to sleep twelve hours. Obviously I live a very balanced life.
Do you ever get mad at people?
Yes. But only for a second and it’s never personal. But I always have the courage to get mad. I have terrible fights with the photographers I work with.
Like?
“You will never work with me again!” – “No, you will never work with me again!”
So could we say that the best thing that ever happened to you was your marriage that ended after three months?
Absolutely.
Do you ever hear from him?
No. I never saw him again.
[Text by Carlo Antonelli]
[Portrait by The Sartorialist]
Thanks for posting it.
