Four years ago, when I had just turned 20, I was at an event in New York City for Teen Vogue. A reporter for New York Magazine asked me who my icon was, and I knew, before even thinking, that it was Vogue Italia’s Editor in Chief, Franca Sozzani. I told them, “Franca Sozzani. She is the editor in chief of Vogue Italia. She is really focused on the democratization of fashion and through Vogue Italia online she allows people from all over the world to write in and file online reports and I find that really interesting. I just think it is necessary for the fashion world to evolve. And especially with all the fast-fashion chains, no matter what price point, no matter how much you have to spend, you can be fashionable.”
With news of Franca Sozzani’s death this morning, I feel extremely sad that the world has lost someone who truly made a change in fashion through the prism of showcasing cultural, social and even economic issues and topics in the form of photography and writing. She included some of the most diverse models in the mainstream fashion magazine world. Body types, age and race were all encompassed in her magazine. She made headlines for the sometimes-controversial editorials in the magazine, such as one that starred Kristen McMenamy wearing beautiful clothing in an oil spill, seemingly glamorizing the Gulf Oil Spill. Still, it got people talking about it and stood as more of a think piece than the typical fashion magazine spread.
As New York Times fashion critic Vanessa Friedman tweeted today, “Farewell to Franca Sozzani, a woman who believed fashion could be more. “We can’t always be writing about flowers,” she said.”
Sozzani revolutionized digital fashion magazines too. She launched Vogue Encyclo, wherein contributors from around the world could pitch ideas to Vogue Italia editors, and if approved, write them for the website and sometimes print magazine. I was one of those people–I wrote fashion and cultural stories from my rural Virginia home while I was still in high school at age 16, some of which were published in the print issues. I also had the opportunity to contribute my writing to a Vogue Italia exhibition in Milan just a year later. She also launched PhotoVogue, which allowed me to have my original photography approved and published on the Vogue Italia website as a contributor.
Though I didn’t know Sozzani personally, she inspired me to make writing my career of choice and, with the opportunities I had, she inspired me to believe in breaking barriers and that anything is possible if you want it badly enough. When people find out how young I am, and that I wrote for the New York Times before I graduated college, and that I gained the title of Contributing Editor at Harper’s BAZAAR while in my junior year of college, they make assumptions that I have good connections or come from a very wealthy family. But I don’t — I’ve always just believed in being yourself and aiming as high as possible. The opportunities I found through Vogue Italia really inspired that.
If you haven’t watched the documentary on Sozzani (Franca: Chaos & Creation), directed by her son, I highly recommend it. The world lost a true icon today.
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