MILAN — Fondazione Sozzani’s 2026 back-to-school is a busy one.
The Milan-based cultural hub and incubator is to reveal Friday that it has joined the Global Education Coalition, the partnership platform established by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO.
In joining the UNESCO coalition, Fondazione Sozzani will support initiatives that strengthen learning opportunities with an equitable, inclusive and qualitative bent. Details of individual projects will be revealed in due course.
“Fondazione Sozzani extends its sincere appreciation to UNESCO for the opportunity to take part in this collective effort, and invites its partners, collaborators and friends to join in supporting the shared mission of the coalition,” the foundation said.
The cultural institution, which has supported young talents in fashion, design and the visual arts since its foundation in 2016, is also debuting the inaugural edition of the Sozzani Awards this month.
They are aimed at spotlighting and celebrating “creative paths that combine independence, rigor and responsibility, championing voices capable of shaping new narratives and making a thoughtful, forward-looking impact on the present,” the foundation said.
Dedicated to photography, fashion, and design and craft, the awards will bestow the annual prize on the most talented candidate of one of the three categories each year.
The inaugural award, supported by Veuve Clicquot, is focused on design and craft and highlights female creators and entrepreneurs. The three finalists are Canadian, but Paris-based multidisciplinary artist Marie-Éve Lecavalier, who specializes in material innovation at the intersection of design and art; the London-based artist Mai Suzki, who works across sculptures for the body, spatial installations, product design, and 3D design and digital fabrications, as well as Nigeria-born fashion designer Timisola Shasanya, a Central Saint Martins graduate with a BA in menswear.
The finalists were selected by a jury that comprised, among others, the Institution designer Galib Gassanoff; Calvin Klein Collection’s creative director Veronica Leoni, and fashion historian Olivier Saillard, in addition to Fondazione Sozzani’s driving forces, president and cofounder Carla Sozzani; American artist Kris Ruhs, Carla’s husband and the foundation’s other cofounder, and creative director Sara Sozzani Maino, the daughter of Carla and niece of the late legendary Vogue Italia editor in chief Franca Sozzani.
The award event is scheduled for Sept. 26 during Milan Fashion Week.
Sara Sozzani Maino
Stefan Gifthaler/Courtesy of Fondazione Sozzani
Established in 2016 by Carla Sozzani and Ruhs, to manage the Galleria Carla Sozzani art, fashion and design gallery which opened in 1990, Fondazione Sozzani has grown into a full-fledged cultural platform. It originally shared the venue with the gallery, located at 10 Corso Como, inside the concept store established by Carla Sozzani in 1991 and currently owned and helmed by retail veteran Tiziana Fausti.
Since 2020, the foundation has been headquartered inside a former industrial plant in Milan’s Bovisasca neighborhood, about a 30-minute drive from downtown. It also boasts another location on Via Tazzoli that opened in 2021 and a Paris outpost that bowed in 2018.
