Milan, July 18th, 2019 – Vogue Talents, Vogue Italia’s well-known fashion talent scouting project, is ten years old and is celebrating with “Vogue Talents 10”, a series of initiatives dedicated to the promotion of creativity in the fashion industry.
Founded in 2009 as a supplement to Vogue Italia, in 2010 the platform went digital thanks to its arrival on vogue.it. Today Vogue Talents is a brand through which Condé Nast Italia supports the new generation of designers, a well-established multi-media platform that has become a reference point for creatives and talent scouts all over the world.
This success is the result of constant research which leads to the discovery of a new generation of creatives in unexplored territories. As it has evolved, Vogue Talents has proved capable of representing the aesthetic and social trends that have defined the past 10 years of international fashion: sustainability in all its forms, a return to artisan production and forgotten trades, the new ethnic moods that touch on anthropology, the variety of inclusive beauty, gender fluidity, openness to all ages and generations and new social feminism.
“Talent is essential, but it’s not enough”, claims Emanuele Farneti, editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia. “An idea must come at the right time, but more than anything it must be translated into practical form with courage, hard work, dedication, determination and constancy. Since well before scouting became fashionable and competitions and awards started to proliferate all over the world, Vogue Italia has been searching for talent – in fashion, in photography; these days in writing too – as one of its founding principles. Our task is to offer talented people an opportunity. Good timing and plenty of work will lead to tomorrow’s success.”
The brain and the soul behind Vogue Talents is Sara Sozzani Maino, head of Vogue Talents and deputy editor-in-chief of Special Fashion Projects at Vogue Italia. In the past ten years of Vogue Talents, Sara and her staff have unearthed talented people on the internet and social media, in the world’s most progressive fashion schools and in fashion week events, travelling tirelessly in search of the purest and most authentic creativity in Europe and America, but also in Africa, India and the Far and Middle East.
“Vogue Talents was created to support the new generation of creatives at a time when few people believed in talent”, says Sara Sozzani Maino. “It’s borderless and barrier-free, and it searches the world, because there’s talent everywhere! Our mission going forward is to act responsibly and set an example that the world needs to change.”
Franca Sozzani’s unique vision gave Vogue Talents its foundations and its shape from the start, when it appeared in the form of a gorgeous fanzine for lovers of aesthetic innovation. Ten years on, Vogue Talents is a consolidated international reference point for emerging fashion in all its forms, a genuine platform that facilitates the meeting of talent and the world of work.
Over the years, the platform’s ongoing dialogue between traditional and digital publishing, print and social media, events and competitions and creative and entrepreneurial vision has led to countless collaborations between designers and brands (in fashion and otherwise): a Talents Lab that’s the natural consequence of constant research and scouting.
The list of brands selected by Vogue Talents who have found success in fashion is extremely long, and includes noteworthy names such as J.W. Anderson, Aquazzura, Giannico, Paula Cademartori, Arthur Arbesser, Simone Rocha, Bethany Williams and Sara Battaglia. Once unknown and full of dreams, over time they have turned into professionals who can inspire the talented newcomers of the future.
We catch up with some of these in a series of exclusive videos published weekly on the Vogue Talents Instagram account (@saramaino_vt) and on Vogue Italia’s social media pages. Wearing bespoke t-shirts created for the occasion by illustrator Andrea Tarella, they’ll reveal how Vogue Talents guided them in their careers.
Every month Vogue Italia publishes the story of a successful brand discovered by Vogue Talents and, in September, the Talents channel of vogue.it will launch “Upload Your Show”, a project that allows designers to upload their look books or shows, which will then be selected for publication by the editorial team.
The platform’s success on social networks is further proof of its appeal to the younger generations. Indeed, the official Instagram account @saramaino_vt has more than 89,000 followers and, together with the Vogue Italia social channels, reaches an overall social fanbase of 6.6 million users.
During Milan Fashion Week in September, the ten-year journey of Vogue Talents will culminate with the inauguration of a major exhibition. From 20 to 21 September, the magnificent rooms of Palazzo Cusani in Brera will host the creations of 70 designers who have made the project’s history. It’s an opportunity to relive ten years of fashion and creativity, but above all, it’s the perfect moment to start imagining the fashion of the future.
#alwaysupportalent #VogueTalents10
Sara Sozzani Maino, head of Vogue Talents and deputy editor-in-chief at Vogue Italia, is also a brand ambassador at the National Chamber of Italian Fashion and a member of the Fashion Committee at the Ministry of Cultural Heritage. She was listed by Business of Fashion in the famous BoF 500, and has appeared on the panels of prestigious awards such as the LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers, Fashion Trust Arabia and ITS-International Talent Support.
Condé Nast Italia
Condé Nast Italia is a multimedia communication company which reaches a profiled audience thanks to its numerous omnichannel assets. It publishes 11 magazines: Vanity Fair, Vogue Italia, L’Uomo Vogue, Glamour, GQ, Wired, AD.Architectural Digest, Condé Nast Traveller, La Cucina Italiana, Accessory_VogueVanityFair and Wedding_VogueVanityFair. The company was the first Condé Nast branch in the world to launch a social-only title: Experience Is; to establish a course for content creators working in the social media sector: Condé Nast Social Academy; to launch a social talent agency: Condé Nast Social Talent Agency. Its innovative projects include the social content creator unit #Shareable. Today the group also runs successful major events such as Wired Next Fest, Vogue for Milano, PhotoVogue, Vanity Fair Stories and GQ Best Dressed Men.
The Condé Nast Italia headquarters in Piazzale Cadorna, Milan are also home to the La Cucina Italiana Cooking School.
The Group’s social platforms have a total fan and follower base of 15.9 million. Its web presence is enhanced by the launch of 7 websites: VanityFair.it: 13 million users \ Wired.it: 5.8 million users \ Vogue.it: 2 million users. These, along with Glamour.it, Gqitalia.it, Ad-italia.it and LaCucinaItaliana.it, reach more than 29 million unique visitors every month and generate 210 million page visits monthly (source: Webtrekk census data – May 2019). – www.condenast.it