English Version | A Franca conversation

It is thought that Fashion is a frivolous sector and photography is not far behind, but Franca Sozzani (1950-2016), former editor in chief of Vogue Italia magazine, true visionary of the power of image and star of controversial editorials, taught us that a photo, an editorial campaign, can speak louder than a journalistic text, the power to say everything without saying anything. We can firmly believe that fashion is a message, journalism is creativity and photography is consciousness, and no, we did not make a mistake in the order of definition. Franca, an inspiration, still alive in the voice of her son Francesco Carrozzini, proves that being inspired by someone, being inspired by something, is the anchor of courage, the farewell to frivolity.

Francesco Carrozzini (42 years old) is the director of Franca: Chaos and Creation (2016), the film that is an intimate portrait of the icon that gives it its name, and which won the Golden Lion for Best Short Film 2008, the U.I.P. Best European Short Film Award 2008, Best Short Film - Special Mention 2008, Venice Immersive Grand Prix 2018, Best VR Story 2018 at the Venice International Film Festival Awards and Daytime Emmy Award for Best New Approach 2010. The Italian filmmaker, former photographer, answered our call with a big smile, confirming that he was welcoming us from New York, from the beautiful house he had created on the outskirts of the Big Apple and, laughing, demonstrated his level of Spanish: “Please, let’s do the interview in Spanish, I want to practice it.” As a Spaniard, I couldn't deny him this meeting in my language to remind him of the years he spent in Madrid.

“It is very important what you choose or what you decide to venture into, cinema is very different from the photography or music videos that I did before, now they are projects lasting two years or a year and a half”, he admits. The director, who now specializes in cinema and television, said goodbye to photography many years ago. Why did Francesco abandon this specialty? “Photography is a love that I still have within me but now I don’t express it, I worry more about telling stories and dedicating more time to a project; photography is faster, which is also what I liked most about it, it gave me an incredible life for 15 years, travel, people and experiences, but now I want something different, I'm looking for something deeper”, he confesses. At that moment, we understood the artist, he was looking for stability, he was talking about family. Francesco, with a two-year-old son, drastically changed his life. His adventures began when he left Italy in 2003 for New York, and although he spent a few years in Los Angeles, life brought him back to NYC. Now, from the outskirts, he shares that he doesn't need those incentives that the city gave him for 20 years. Carrozzini confirmed again that one of the things that made him decide on cinema was having the opportunity to tell stories, something that photography normally does not allow. His mother, Franca Sozzani, certainly wouldn't agree with that.

Without thinking, we launched a creative challenge to the artist: what if he had a camera in his hands again and the opportunity to give voice to a current problem through fashion like his mother did? Which topic would he like to give visibility to? “I would love to do a book, for the previous reason of telling a long story, I don't know if talking about a problem, maybe I would be interested in talking about more than one person, telling stories through people. My mother was inspired by causes, by politics; I am inspired by people. Everything is always linked to the characters, I'm interested in telling people's lives more than their problems. The photograph, as my mother interpreted it, had a synthetic background. My mother had a very strong social conscience, she was interested in this objective. For me, it's more about people's lives and what they hide and inspire. Now, at a time when everything is right or left, white or black, straight or gay, we are in very dangerous and highly divisive years, I am interested in stories that can last over time and do not have an imposed label. We are very different people who share similar things: fear, love, dreams….” Franca Sozzani, his mother, did not shy away from political issues, Francesco spoke about it. “She was very interested in politics, I'm more interested in people's psychology and I think there are serious problems, I have a lot of empathy and for me it's very difficult to agree with just one side. Fighting for a cause is very difficult, both sides of a cause are very fragile.”

Franca Sozzani died in December 2016 after being diagnosed with lung cancer. The last edition of Vogue Italia that she signed for was in February 2017. Has she ever used the Italian title to raise awareness of her illness? “She never did that, she didn't want anyone to know she was sick, in the last few months she started to seem weak, ill; but no, she wanted to continue being herself, she wanted to leave when she was still young.” He said. What was it like dealing with having a big role with a big illness that last year, even for him, at Vogue Italia? “I try to think about it now, I remember her and I see a person so confused that she didn't know what was happening. It's very difficult to have control over such a big moment in your life, it's not just that you're losing your mother, your life is changing completely. As I always say to my friends: there are two things in my life that were huge, the death of my mother and the birth of my son. There's nothing more important, winning an Oscar is something else. When something so big happens in your life it takes a long time to understand it. I needed time, I just survived. You have to do this, there is nothing else, and now if something like this happens to me in my life… the good thing is that I don't have parents anymore; but I would have known how to survive with more control, but that moment was a tornado.”

His mother's strength was still incomparable, after living with it for less than a year, she remained at the helm of Vogue Italia until the end. “She never stopped working, she had a lot of vocation and character”, he shared with a tender gesture. Franca said in an interview: “my talent was finding very talented people.” A phrase in his mother's voice, we highly doubt anyone would disagree with her, she was undoubtedly incomparable in discovering talents, but the greatest of them was his. 

She was very proud of her son's chosen path, but as a professional, did his mother invest in his work? We saw him in some issues, like in September 2014 photographing Shirin Neshat, for example. “Vogue Italia was like a family, it was a cool circle. I remember that when I was 5 or 6 years old, in the office where they worked, I created my own magazine, it wasn't called Vogue, it was something different, I don't remember the name I gave it. I cut out photos, made collages, that's what I knew and I did. Vogue Italia, a family and a place where I always felt very good, a second home”, he shares. 

“With the loss of my mother I stopped working with them, I believe that life has chapters and moments and these moments end, a new life began with her death and it is something necessary. There are negative things about the death of parents, but there are also good things; we are in between walls, protected by our parents, they are always here... I felt very alone, but also completely free, I had no one else to tell me what should and shouldn't be done; It's a horrible thing, but there are also positive things. My mother told me a lot what I had to do, but no more than other parents.” After listening to him, we wanted to know how he is now, is he happy? “They were very difficult years, I lost my father in 2011 and my mother in 2016. The first three, four years were very complicated and perhaps, in a different way, I should now confront everything and live with this big emotional part of what happened, but now that I have a son, he is the love of my life. I have an infinite love for my mother, but the love for my son is something completely different and you don't understand until you live, it's an inexplicable love”, he conveyed with teary eyes.

We asked him about the person he had left in his hometown, Monza, his aunt Carla Sozzani, to share with me what she is like, a great woman, creative and interesting, very curious, and Francesco is fascinated by people like that. He confessed that during the period of his mother's illness was when he understood the importance of having a family; despite being an only child, he had her, she was always there and still is. Now, they continue to have a strong union despite being thousands of miles apart. Franca Sozzani and Carla Sozzani currently have a bookstore, gallery and foundation in Milan, an Italian city close to the Venice International Film Festival, where Francesco presented, in August, the documentary dedicated to his mother, who turns eight this year - “Franca: chaos and creation” -, a title inspired by the photograph by Philippe Halsman - Salvador Dalí and a rhinoceros - from 1956.

Franca implicitly trusted her artists, visionary photographers like Peter Lindbergh, Steven Meisel, and Bruce Weber. “Franca’s deep imagination was based on drama, irony, history, ambition and the sense that fashion meant more than clothes on the catwalk.” Speaking to Francesco about his mother's great companions and the great photographers who endure through time today, as soon as I mentioned the figure of one of them -Peter Lindbergh-, he interrupted: “Peter will always be another great pain in my life, he was so young, so good, he was such a generous man, he was very special, he was like my second father. He was brilliant, emotional, he was more of a film director than a photographer, he always gave emotion to the characters and in his photography, a lot of what I know, I learned from him, my teacher. I still have contact with Bruce Weber, a friend of my family and a great photographer, twice a year we meet to see if we are ok, but on the other hand, I never had a relationship with Steven Meisel, I can't say he's someone I know well. Paolo Roversi, a great friend and photography star. Everything was a big family with the photographers, a 30-year relationship with everyone and they were people with very important freedom because this great creative freedom was only found at Vogue Italia. My mother presented it as a ‘safe art’, of creativity, of all the important people and of my dear Peter… I miss Peter so much, I miss him so much”, he confessed with tears in his eyes. It was a difficult moment, we couldn't imagine what Francesco was feeling, the great admiration for Peter was always very special, an inspiration, knowing that in addition to being a beautiful artist, he was a beautiful person, it was moving. We wanted to give you a happy memory of Lindbergh again, so we shared a story about him in the city of Madrid that you heard fondly. He had no idea, but his friend and family, for over 12 years, in one of Madrid's biggest studios, Q17, photographed influential Spanish profiles - such as Nieves Álvarez - and told a story again through his black and white photographs. . “Peter had a magic in his photography, of emotion, he could do things that other photographers couldn't, they were characters, you saw what they thought and felt, it was so, so interesting. And… it’s black and white, that black and white, the most beautiful in the world, 35 mm, how incredible.”

“Vogue, I prefer to think about it and keep the positive things from my years, this whole world is over for me, I don't look at magazines anymore and I'm aware that I'm still in this world, it's a reality; It's my current family and I'm interested, but I don't want to know more now, I want to cherish my mother's time there. Vogue Italia, fashion shows, the 80s and 90s, behind the scenes at Versace and a very young Naomi Campbell”, he continued recalling glorious moments in fashion.

“I want to remember 94 or 95, a night with the singer Prince at the Gianni Versace show with Shalom Harlow, I was about 14 years old. I want to keep those moments, and they influenced me in deciding my profession, I did what I did because I was in that world, I was interested in what I was experiencing, now I'm interested in other things, I don't know anything about the industry anymore”, he confessed.

The publishing industry, after his mother left, changed, but after the pandemic it changed even more. The year with the most work, recalls the artist, was just before the pandemic, 2018. After realizing that there was no future in the way he wanted to do this work, he made a film and then came Netflix and the series Supersex (2023), a new chapter of his life that he has been in for several years and with him he said goodbye to this very special meeting where it was confirmed that Francesco Carrozzini is the living voice of Italian Vogue in the 90s, the era of Franca Sozzani's “safe art”.

Translated from the original in Vogue Portugal's The Icons Issue, published November 2024. Full story and credits in the print issue.