Timisola Shasanya Wins the First-Ever Sozzani Award, as Milan Bets Big on Emerging Women Creatives
MILAN — On September 26, during Milan Fashion Week, Fondazione Sozzani handed out a prize that didn’t exist a year earlier, and in doing so, staked a claim on a specific kind of talent: women whose creative work moves culture forward, not just a collection.
Founded in Milan in 2016 by Carla Sozzani, Fondazione Sozzani grew out of the Carla Sozzani Gallery, a space that’s shaped the city’s cultural life since 1990. Under the curation of Sara Sozzani Maino, the foundation has built its reputation on treating fashion as culture, not commerce, dedicating itself to photography, art and the kind of education and creative advocacy that doesn’t always get a runway moment. The Sozzani Award is the foundation’s newest extension of that mission, and its first edition made clear who it’s meant to serve.
Timisola Shasanya won the inaugural Sozzani Award, taking home the Veuve Clicquot Design & Craft Scholarship for Women to fund a professional training course of her choosing. The Central Saint Martins menswear graduate has built a reputation on collections that fuse London and Nigerian influences into eclectic, seductive menswear, most recently with SS26’s “Runners,” shown at HIFI London to press calling her one of the category’s most exciting new voices.
The jury judged finalists on artistic quality, research depth, social impact and narrative capacity, criteria built to reward creatives who are pushing an idea forward, not simply executing one well.
That mission, recognizing a new generation of creatives who can build new narratives, is the foundation the Sozzani Award was built on, and this first edition set the bar for what kind of work the prize is meant to champion going forward.
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