MILAN — About a 30-minute drive from downtown Milan, in the Bovisasca neighborhood, behind a greenery-filled fence, stands an anonymous industrial building not unlike many others dotting the city’s suburban streets.

Past the tiny front gate, the space reveals its captivatingly decadent allure. The main Milanese home to Fondazione Sozzani since 2020, the space is layered in aesthetic references, reflecting the foundation’s multipronged scope and work.

By the end of Milan Men’s Fashion Week, which kicks off Friday, showgoers will know the place well, as it will serve as the venue of choice for a handful of up-and-coming designer brands’ shows and presentations, including MTL Studio, Pronounce, Cascinelli, Simon Cracker, Lessico Familiare, David Catalan and Miguel Vieira.

The headquarters marks the most recent development in the foundation’s step-up game. The Galleria Carla Sozzani gallery opened in 1990 and the foundation was established in 2016 by Carla Sozzani and her partner, American artist Kris Ruhs, to manage the art, fashion and design space. Since then, the foundation has grown into a full-fledged cultural hub and incubator. 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. 

To be sure, driving the foundation’s cultural scope beyond its original art focus has been Sara Sozzani Maino’s goal for the past four years. The daughter of Carla and niece of legendary Vogue Italia’s editor in chief Franca Sozzani, Sozzani Maino is the foundation’s creative director.

“Since I joined in 2021, I brought along my pillars, hinged on supporting the new generation of creatives, championing education and fostering social responsibility,” Sozzani Maino said in an interview.

“I think that the Fondazione really is a coming together of different passions that Carla and I have… I’ve learned so much from her experience and she — and the space — have perhaps benefited from my fresh ideas. For example, when I joined and started to talk about sustainability and responsibility, Carla was less of an expert than I was,” Sozzani Maino said.

“Driving culture is always the overarching objective, which then leads to exploring art, photography, fashion,” she said.

Fondazione Sozzani boasts a rich cultural program, spanning exhibitions, permanent displays, and events tied to the art, fashion and design worlds. Most of it is the result of serendipitous encounters. Sozzani Maino wants the foundation to “just speak when we have something meaningful to say.”

“I’m very proud of everything we do, because it’s ultimately tied to raising awareness and consciousness of important topics. People come and see something hopefully beautiful, but I primarily want them to go home treasuring a message,” she said.

This approach has allowed the foundation to attract a diverse community of aficionados, including students who are attracted to the foundation’s many links with national and international fashion, art and design schools.

“We always try to promote interaction. For example, when we offer this space to some creatives, we invite them to create opportunities to give back to the local community,” via workshops, talks and other engaging activations, she explained.

“What’s really satisfying is to witness that Fondazione Sozzani is perceived as a very democratic place, open to everybody, which I think is vital in the current historical, political, social and cultural context,” Sozzani Maino said.

Less visible or tangible than Fondazione Sozzani’s link to the art world — exemplified by the display of Ruhs’ monumental “Falling on Earth” and “The Breath of the Earth” installations, part of the permanent “Studio” exhibit in addition to temporary shows — are its incubator initiatives.

Although she would reject the expression “talent scouter,” Sozzani Maino has committed to the promotion of new talents throughout her career, driven by her penchant for discovery and newness.

“The rational is always to give back. I started working at Vogue Italia when I was 19 and I always like to say that fashion chose me rather than vice versa. I’ve been so privileged but since the start of my career I noticed there was little space for newness [in fashion],” she said.

During her almost three decade career at Vogue Italia, Sozzani Maino has driven the magazine’s promotion of up-and-comers. In 2005 she teamed with Franca Sozzani to establish “Who Is on Next?” — an international contest founded by the glossy magazine and Rome-based fashion showcase Altaroma to support young international designers and promote Made in Italy. In 2009 she masterminded with her editor in chief the launch of Vogue Talents, an international platform and project within the magazine aimed at supporting niche and independent creatives.

A regular on international fashion contests’ jury panels, including the LVMH Prize, Woolmark Prize, Fashion Trust Arabia, International Talent Support, or ITS, Sozzani Maino was named international new talents and brands ambassador at Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana in 2018. Since 2017 she has also served as an advisory board member for the Camera Moda Fashion Trust, the Italian nonprofit organization established that year to support young Italian or Italy-based talents in developing their businesses with financial aid, as well as business mentoring programs and tutoring.

“At the beginning I was motivated by a thirst for newness, by anyone new with something fresh and different to say,” Sozzani Maino said. “Today I’ve grown increasingly meticulous and uncompromising on social responsibility as a mandatory condition for me to engage with new brands and designers,” she said, admitting new generations are very much at the forefront of that conversation.

“I see so many projects and 9 out of 10 already have this undercurrent, either linked to more sustainable supply chains, women empowerment, or use of responsible materials. I rarely find myself in the position to say no because of a lack of these values,” she said.

“Over the past few years, I have invested in providing visibility to talents that lacked the financial means to be seen and reach an audience with their creativity,” she added.

In her role at the Camera Moda Fashion Trust, she’s been vocal about the importance to support the next generation and regularly urges big brands to do their part, especially at a time of economic volatility.

“The sector needs more philanthropic initiatives, it should care more about the new generations. It’s never about us and always about them and the future of this industry,” she said, lamenting — and somewhat disenchanted by — the lack of support from many big players.

“I don’t give up, though” she said.

To wit, the trust named its four 2025 recipients in May, allocating 50,000 euros in financial aid for each. They included Francesco Murano, Institution by Galib Gassanoff, Lessico Familiare and Moja Rowa, the latter rewarded thanks to a personal donation by Marco Bizzarri, founder and chairman of the Forel fund and chairman of Elisabetta Franchi.

Touring the Fondazione Sozzani headquarters — as well as its other location on Milan’s Via Tazzoli that opened in 2021, or its Paris outpost that bowed in 2018 — one feels more inside a spacious artist’s studio than a corporate-funded gallery.

Indie cultural activations are bound to animate the foundation during Milan Men’s Fashion Week.

In partnership with Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana it is hosting the screening of “Il Digiuno,” a short movie curated by Riccardo Terzo blending archival and found footage that explore the saturation of the gaze and the coexistence of beauty and violence in the present.

On Saturday, the foundation — which also has its own publishing company dedicate to art, photography, fashion and design — will debut a new exhibition “The Mainframe,” which juxtaposes Francesco Casarotto’s handmade sculptural masks called “Agglomerati” with an AI-driven interactive installation by FullScream Studio and a short film directed by Ced Pakusevskij.