How to own a piece of fashion history

Few fashion editors can claim to be as universally beloved as Franca Sozzani. The visionary Editor-in-Chief commanded Vogue Italia for almost 30 years until her death in 2016, overseeing not just some of the fashion industry’s most iconic imagery – photographers Steven Meisel, Paolo Roversi and Michel Comte were longtime collaborators – but true cultural moments as well; presiding over editorials that challenged readers to open their eyes to subjects as diverse as domestic violence, climate change, racial inequality and plastic surgery.

When it came to her own wardrobe, Sozzani championed new talent – as she did in the pages of Vogue – as well as wearing designs by the legions of fashion greats who became her close friends. Today, 397 of her most memorable ready-to-wear and haute couture outfits, plus 190 accessories, are being put up for sale by her son, filmmaker and photographer Francesco Carrozzini. There is a greater purpose behind Carrozzini’s action: the proceeds of the sale, hosted by YOOX and its founder, Sozzani’s friend Federico Marchetti, will be dedicated to the new Franca Sozzani Fund for Preventive Genomics at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard, a trust set up to enable further research into disease prevention, specifically for conditions passed on genetically. Fashion’s finest indeed.

Shop Sozzani’s legendary wardrobe and pick up Carrozzini’s intimate biography of his mother, Franca: Chaos & Creation (Assouline), now.

The people featured in this story are not associated with NET-A-PORTER and do not endorse it or the products shown.