“40 years, never a fight. Never a moment.” As 10 Corso Como opens its New York outpost, the creative director recalls one of her life’s great collaborators
“I knew Azzedine since 1979. Françoise Havan was a stylist working at Elle in Paris, but she was a correspondent for me when I was doing Vogue Pelle. Azzedine was doing the studded leather, so we did a story on him. And Françoise said, ‘You have to meet him.’ I came to Paris, to the rue de Bellechasse – we should put something there, it’s historical. He wanted to offer me a couture dress. So he took my measurements – it was so funny. He measured my chest – ‘Perfect.’ My waist – ‘Perfect.’ Then he got to here, to my hips, and he said, ‘Oh! Un cul méditerranéen!’ So we started laughing, and we never stopped. He came to Portofino with Arthur Elgort and the dogs, and my daughter has dark hair – curly, like him – so he told everyone she was his daughter. One time a journalist wanted to interview him about the daughter he had with Carla! We had such a great time. 40 years, never a fight. Never a moment.”
I first met Carla Sozzani over dinner at Azzedine Alaïa’s. At a table of fiercely intellectual, ferociously fast French speakers, Carla acted as a gentle translator, calm in the eye of the storm – her natural state. A tremendous creative in her own right, it is Carla’s fraternal and maternal spirits that I adore as much as I respect her professional prowess. An editor for 19 years on numerous Italian magazine titles before founding both her eponymous gallery and the cult retail store 10 Corso Como in Milan, Sozzani is marking two special occasions this year – her 70th birthday and her 50th year in fashion. She is currently overseeing a series of exhibitions and events at the Galerie Azzedine Alaïa, devoted to keeping the legacy of the man she called a brother alive.
Hair: Pawel Solis at Artlist Paris using Oribe. Make-up: Aya Fujita at Calliste Agency using Takeda Brush. Photographic assistant: Charlotte Krieger. Styling assistants: Rebecca Perlmutar, Camila Paiva and Georgina Craig
This story originally featured in the Autumn/Winter 2018 issue of AnOther Magazine, which is on sale internationally now.