Franca Sozzani on Why Steven Meisel Has Shot Over 325 Consecutive Vogue Italia Covers

Franca Sozzani recently explained why Steven Meisel has shot every Vogue Italia cover since 1988: "I needed to have a consistent, recognizable look to every cover. My idea was that even if you took the word “Italia” off, you know what Vogue Italia is. Many magazines don’t seem to have a connection between one cover and the next, and it becomes hard to tell them apart. Especially today — images can be printed in such a high quality, but that also flattens them out, in a way. There’s a similar problem in fashion. Everyone can buy clothes — the most accessible clothes are not of the best quality, but unless you look at the label, you don’t know who it’s by. It’s this kind of oversaturation that makes me believe we are on the brink of another huge change."

Sozzani also believes that putting resources into the Vogue Italia website has paid off for the magazine: "The website is doing a great job because it functions as a teaser for the magazine. September, October, and November our sales were up 27 percent, and this is because of the web. Everyone has this idea that online will kill print, but it’s not true. Like everything else, it depends on how you do things."