Carla Sozzani

Carla Sozzani is the founder of 10 Corso Como. Sozzani opened Galleria Carla Sozzani in a vacant garage at 10 Corso Como in 1990, originally as only an exhibition space.  A year later, The Milan store expanded to an attached bookstore, fashion and design store, roof garden, hotel and café. In doing so, the Italian art entrepreneur famously was one of the first to bring about the fashion concept store. Sozzani has gone on to open additional stores in Tokyo, in collaboration with Commes des Garçons, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing and New York's Seaport district.

After 19 years of experience in editing which Sozzani began on the side during her university studies in the late 70s, Sozzani realised she could share a degree of closeness with her customers that she could not get through fashion magazines when she decided to open her store. During her time as a fashion editor, Sozzani was the founding editor-in-chief of Italian Elle in 1987, and was editor-in-chief of her sister’s Vogue Italia special editions. She left the title in 1986 and was appointed American Vogue’s editor-at-large for Italy. With a passion for photography that flourished partly through her close work with the likes of Bruce Weber and Herb Ritts, Sozzani opened the Galleria Carla Sozzani, which triggered the subsequent opening of the Sozzani’s bookstore, café and the boutique.

Sozzani was inspired by the concept of an Italian piazza when forming her first and subsequent spaces, telling Interview she wanted to create a “place where people would come and meet, see an exhibition, browse through books, have a drink, eat, rest, shop.” Sozzani has also collaborated with Azzedine Alaïa and Rei Kawakubo and put on exhibitions for Annie Leibovitz, Helmut Newton, David La Chappelle and Steven Meisel in her own gallery space and and at the Maison Européenne de la Photoraphie in Paris, among other locations. Upon Alaïa’s death in 2017,Sozzani helped organise his homage exhibition at the Design Museum in London Her gallery has published numerous books and photography catalogues.

In 2016, Sozzani created a foundation which holds her personal art collection. She also launched a photography exhibition from her collection entitled “Between Art & Fashion”.