Alain Elkann Interviews
Alain Elkann Interviews podcasts are an unprecedented window into the minds of some of the most well-known and -respected figures of the last twenty-five years. Alain Elkann has mastered the art of the interview, approaching the task as somewhere between snapping a photograph and writing a short story. With a background in novels and journalism, and having published over twenty books translated across ten languages, Alain infuses his interviews with innovation, allowing them to flow freely and organically. A small selection, to which we will gradually add, are presented here as podcasts for the first time.
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Federico Campagna - 234 - Alain Elkann Interviews
05/04/2025
Federico Campagna - 234 - Alain Elkann Interviews
SPEAKING TO THE DEFEATED. Federico Campagna is an Italian philosopher based in London. His research concerns the metaphysics, politics and history of world-building. His books are Technic and Magic (Bloomsbury, 2018) and Prophetic Culture (Bloomsbury, 2021) and his next book Otherworlds, Mediterranean Lessons on Escaping History will investigate the history of cosmological imagination during times of crisis in the Mediterranean area. “The values of old are gone, and you have to reinvent your way of life from scratch” “An apocalypse reveals all the things that usually, in your daily life, you tend to not notice immediately.” “The world is produced outside of us to a minimal extent. It is produced within us to a maximum extent.”
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James Daunt - 233 - Alain Elkann Interviews
04/27/2025
James Daunt - 233 - Alain Elkann Interviews
A REMARKABLE BOOKSELLER. James Daunt is the founder of the Daunt Books chain in the UK, and has been managing director of Waterstones, the bookshop chain of more than 300 stores, since 2011. In 2019 he also became CEO of Barnes & Noble, the American bookstore chain of some 650 stores. An Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Daunt was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to publishing. “The real joy of a bookstore is that it does curate and it does the job of ensuring that readers and customers are browsing the best that’s available.“ “The book is ultimately the most satisfying way in which to educate oneself and to illuminate around the issue of interest“ “There are booksellers up and down, particularly in Europe, who are espousing the same principles, which is let the booksellers in each shop run their own bookstores“
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Laurence des Cars - 232 - Alain Elkann Interviews
04/20/2025
Laurence des Cars - 232 - Alain Elkann Interviews
A LARGE MUSEUM IS LIKE AN OPERA. Laurence des Cars is a French museum curator and art historian who President Macron appointed President and Director of the Louvre Museum in September 2021, becoming the first woman to hold the position in the establishment’s 228-year history. Her previous role was President of musée d’Orsay and musée de l’Orangerie. Laurence des Cars is the author of several books including ‘The Pre-Raphaelites: Romance and Realism’. “The Louvre is more than a museum. It’s a symbol of France, of Paris.” “We are definitely in a very complex moment, and we are looking for places where we can confront ourselves through a perspective of long time in history.” “I do not think that looking at art should be painful, boring and exhausting. It should be absolutely the contrary to that.”
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Graydon Carter - 231 - Alain Elkann Interviews
04/13/2025
Graydon Carter - 231 - Alain Elkann Interviews
GOOD GOING. Graydon Carter launched his enjoyable digital weekly newsletter Air Mail in 2019. He was the editor of Vanity Fair for twenty-five years, and under him Vanity Fair won numerous awards. Named to the American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame, he is also an author and editor of books, a producer of plays and documentaries, and a restaurateur. In the newly published memoir When the Going Was Good Graydon recounts how he made his mark as one of society’s most talented editors and shapers of culture. “I’m a very kind person, and I treat everybody the same.” “Every editor out there was working at the top of their game, and they were really good, so the competition was fierce.” “Always carry a handkerchief!”
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Guillaume Bonn - 230 - Alain Elkann Interviews
03/23/2025
Guillaume Bonn - 230 - Alain Elkann Interviews
AFRICA: FACING THE FACTS. Guillaume Bonn is a documentary photographer who has commented on conflict, social and environmental issues for the last 25 years. As a contributor to the New York Times and Vanity Fair he covered topics ranging from the conflict in Northern Uganda, the Darfur humanitarian crisis and the ivory trade in African elephants. Bonn grew up in Kenya and his subsequent reporting bought him to 40 countries on the African continent. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, he is the author of a beautiful new book Paradise Inc.. “African governments are struggling, yet they seem to overlook opportunities to improve the lives of their citizens.” “It’s baffling that African governments continue to follow outdated conservation models imposed when national parks were first established. “Politicians view wildlife as existing on pristine land that could easily be transformed into big cities, parking lots, casinos, and supermarkets.”
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David Veal - 229 - Alain Elkann Interviews
03/16/2025
David Veal - 229 - Alain Elkann Interviews
EDUCATING THE CONSUMER ABOUT COFFEE AND TEA. DAVID VEAL has been deeply involved in both the coffee industry and the tea industry for over 40 years. He is the former Executive Director of the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe and is currently Executive Director of The European Speciality Tea Association, a position he took up in May 2019. “There is a commonality between tea and coffee, and that is education.” “We’re all about promoting speciality tea and fostering a speciality tea community worldwide.” “The path that speciality tea is taking is similar to the one that speciality coffee took, but about 20 to 30 years behind.” • David Veal has over 42 years of experience in the coffee and tea industries, initially working in the coffee sector and later becoming the executive director of the European Speciality Tea Association. • Coffee originated in Ethiopia and spread to other regions like Indonesia, India, and Brazil. There are two main varieties of commercially grown coffee - robusta and arabica, with arabica being the higher quality. • The coffee industry has seen a cultural revival in recent decades, with the rise of coffee shop chains like Starbucks making coffee a more sophisticated and social drink. • Tea has a much longer history, with origins in China thousands of years ago. It is deeply ingrained in the cultures of countries like China, India, and the UK, where it is a popular daily beverage. • The tea industry faces challenges similar to coffee, with a divide between mass-market, low-quality tea and the speciality, high-quality tea market. Factors like climate change and an ageing workforce are also impacting tea production. • Proper brewing methods, water quality, and education about the nuances of different teas and coffees are important for consumers to appreciate the full flavour profiles of these beverages. • Overall, both the coffee and tea industries are evolving, with the speciality and premium segments offering opportunities for growth and appreciation of these complex and culturally significant commodities.
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Thomas Heatherwick - 228 - Alain Elkann Interviews
03/09/2025
Thomas Heatherwick - 228 - Alain Elkann Interviews
HUMANISE: A DEEPLY PASSIONATE MANIFESTO. Thomas Heatherwick is a British designer whose varied work over two decades is characterised by its originality, inventiveness and humanity. As the founder and design director of Heatherwick Studio, Thomas now heads a team of over 250 problem solvers dedicated to making the physical world around us better for everyone. This team wants to see a world where the buildings and places around us are radically more joyful, engaging and human. The approach driving everything is to lead from human experience rather than any fixed design belief. "I advocate for servant architecture." "Working with neuroscientists and researchers, I see that once you get to city scale you go into stress when it's plain, flat, shiny, serious, monotonous and anonymous." "It's a real challenge as an adult to keep connected to true common sense."
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Cécile Verdier - 227 - Alain Elkann Interviews
03/02/2025
Cécile Verdier - 227 - Alain Elkann Interviews
ART ELEVATES YOU EVERY DAY. Cécile Verdier is President of Christie's France. She graduated from Sciences Po and Art History at Paris IV, before spending 4 years at Christie's as Head of Valuations then moving to the 20th Century department, in parallel of taking the hammer for Christie’s France since the inauguration sale in 2001. From 2008 to 2018, she was heading the 20th Century Design Department globally at Sotheby’s and Vice President of the French office at the end of her tenure. In 2019, she came back to Christie’s as President for France. “An auction house is rightly called a house, not an auction company. We are a home.” “You can hear English being spoken all over the city. Paris definitely became more international.” “There are no bad questions. “How much do you think it will cost?” is always a good question to ask.”
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Professor Sheng Lim - 226 - Alain Elkann Interviews
02/23/2025
Professor Sheng Lim - 226 - Alain Elkann Interviews
RESTORING AND MAINTAINING EYESIGHT. Professor Sheng Lim is an internationally renowned ophthalmologist and consultant at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. He was trained in the UK and also spent one year as the International Glaucoma Association’s postdoctoral fellow at the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota. He was promoted to Professor of Ophthalmology (Glaucoma Studies) at King’s College London in 2020, in recognition of his contribution towards ophthalmology research. He is currently the head of ophthalmology research at St Thomas’, and founder of their KCL Frost Eye Research Department, one of the largest ophthalmology clinical trial units in the UK. “My ultimate goal, as a professor in glaucoma research, is to find a cure for glaucoma and prevent blindness.” “Vision is probably one of the most intimate and important sensory organs that a human being has.” “In the UK and Europe we have more choices, better suited for the patients, than they have in America.”
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Idarica Gazzoni Frascara - 225 - Alain Elkann Interviews
02/16/2025
Idarica Gazzoni Frascara - 225 - Alain Elkann Interviews
BEAUTIFULLY TRANSFORMING WALLS AND ROOMS. Idarica Gazzoni Frascara’s hometown is Bologna, Italy. After she studied with Van Der Kelen in his painting school in Brussels, Belgium, and learned the technique of faux bois and marbleizing she became a passionate artist, painting rooms and walls and ceilings in Italy and many other countries. In 2009 she founded Arjumand’s World and opened her first showroom for fabrics and wallpapers in Milano. “I fell in love with Arjumand because she was quite extraordinary and had all the details I was looking for.” “All the rules have changed.” “Being so small I cannot be like Zara Home, unfortunately!”
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Jonathan Reekie - 224 - Alain Elkann Interviews
02/09/2025
Jonathan Reekie - 224 - Alain Elkann Interviews
A CROSS DISCIPLINARY WORLD FOR YOUNG ARTISTS. Jonathan Reekie has been Director of Somerset House Trust in London since 2014. During this time, the renovation of the historic site with its grand Renaissance architecture has been completed, including the launch of Somerset House Studios for artist residencies. Reekie has established Somerset House as a home of cultural innovators and in 2025 Somerset House celebrates its 25th birthday, marking its extraordinary transformation to one of London’s best loved cultural spaces and home to one of the largest creative communities in the UK. “Thinking about how artists can help us make a better world” “Bringing artists back into a space in the centre of the city is very crucial if London wants to remain a creative centre.” “If I can help make a better environment for artists to work, think and thrive then I will always feel very fulfilled.”
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Alastair Buchan - 223 - Alain Elkann Interviews
01/26/2025
Alastair Buchan - 223 - Alain Elkann Interviews
WORKING WITH THE BRAIN. Alastair Buchan is a British-Canadian doctor who specialises as a clinical neurologist. His main research interest is how to make neuroprotection a reality in the clinic. He currently holds the Chair of Stroke Research at the University of Oxford. From 2008 until 2017, he served as the Dean of Medicine and the Head of the Medical Sciences Division at the University of Oxford, and then from 2017 on as the university’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Head of Brexit Strategy. Working to maintain Oxford’s continued presence in Europe he brokered partnerships with the Universities and hospitals in Berlin and established the Oxford-Berlin Research Partnership, which includes an “Oxford in Berlin” centre for Oxford University in Berlin. “We are starting to learn how to work on brain failure, which results in dementia.” “Light is really toxic to the brain at night, and you do not want to be looking at a computer screen late at night.” “I would put the Universities in charge of health care.”
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Jussi Pylkkänen - 222 - Alain Elkann Interviews
01/19/2025
Jussi Pylkkänen - 222 - Alain Elkann Interviews
CHANGING TASTE AND VALUE. Jussi Pylkkänen is now an independent art advisor. After 38 years of service, his career at Christies culminated in the global presidency of the auction house. Among his many outstanding achievements, in 2017 he was the auctioneer at the sale of the world’s most expensive painting, Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, sold at auction at in New York for $450,312,500, a new record price for any artwork which is likely to stand for many decades. “Art is the esssence of humanity.” “As I brought the hammer down on Salvator Mundi I was conscious that that one last bid, at an extra $30 million, was the equivalent of the total price of the Van Gogh Sunflowers, the painting and price that had transformed the art market forever in 1987.” “I will be back auctioneering alongside my art advisory. The two will go hand in hand.”
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Andrea Wong - 221 - Alain Elkann Interviews
01/12/2025
Andrea Wong - 221 - Alain Elkann Interviews
PASSIONATE ABOUT HOW PEOPLE RELAX. Andrea Wong has vast experience in the leisure and entertainment industry on both sides of the Atlantic. Wong was President, International Production for Sony Pictures Television and President, International for Sony Pictures Entertainment based in London. Prior to that, she served as President and CEO of Lifetime Cable Networks. She now serves on the boards of Liberty Media Corporation, Roblox, QVC Group, and Hudson Pacific Properties. “Everyone knows what it feels like to fall in love, to date, to be dumped.” “Dancing With the Stars was the most visually arresting show I’d ever seen.” “You have to do what you love. You have to do what makes you want to get up in the morning.”
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Priscilla Rattazzi - 220 - Alain Elkann Interviews
12/29/2024
Priscilla Rattazzi - 220 - Alain Elkann Interviews
BETWEEN WORLDS. Priscilla Rattazzi was born in Rome in 1956, attended Atlantic College in Wales, UK, and moved to the United States in the 1970s where she studied photography at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. The themes of her recent London solo exhibition, titled Between Worlds and at Robilant+Voena, offer a reflection of the photographer’s life, with an interlinking chronology, examining human relationships, and relationships between people and their dogs, while suggesting the increasingly profound reassurance of nature as an eternal point of reference, especially in uncertain times. “I have gone back and forth between worlds, not knowing who I am…” “I only tend to photograph things I love now, and I do my best work when I get upset.” “I’m deeply focussed on making sure that I’m a respected artist 20 years from now.”
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Giorgio Spanu - 219 - Alain Elkann Interviews
12/22/2024
Giorgio Spanu - 219 - Alain Elkann Interviews
CREATING A CULTURAL HUB. Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu are the co-founders of Magazzino Italian Art, a museum and research center dedicated to postwar and contemporary Italian art that is located in Cold Spring, New York. Magazzino opened in 2017 at the former manufacturing site of Cyberchron rugged military computer systems. The name Magazzino translates as "warehouse". “Magazzino made the step that has made Arte Povera better known today.” “Magazzino will never stop displaying the 13 heroes that we have in the group of Arte Povera, so the original ‘main building’ will always remain a museum dedicated to Arte Povera.” “The donkeys in Sardinia were on the verge of extinction and were under very strict protection with laws that would not allow their export outside Sardinia.”
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Dr Virgilio Sacchini - 218 - Alain Elkann Interviews
12/15/2024
Dr Virgilio Sacchini - 218 - Alain Elkann Interviews
BELIEVING IN HOPE WITHOUT COMPROMISE. Dr Virgilio Sacchini is dedicated to caring for people with breast cancer at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He originally trained at Universita degli Studi di Milano (UNIMI, Milan, Italy) where he is Professor of Surgery, and cooperates with the European Institute of Oncology in Milan (IEO, Milan, Italy). Dr Sacchini is a 2023 and 2024 Castle Connolly America’s Top Doctor, the peer nominated group of the top 7% of all US practicing physicians. His goal is to achieve the best possible cancer outcomes and cosmetic results for his patients. “The new concept is to target only cancer cells.” “To cure someone and give him or her a miserable life is terrible, so the target in this moment is both better survival and better quality of life, less side effects.” “Once we prove that the combination of the medication with the Avacta technique works, of course it is approved and you can be cured everywhere in the world.”
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Michelangelo Pistoletto - 217 - Alain Elkann Interviews
12/01/2024
Michelangelo Pistoletto - 217 - Alain Elkann Interviews
BREAKING THE MIRROR. Michelangelo Pistoletto is one of the most celebrated artists in Europe. Born in Biella, Italy, in 1933 and a leading figure of the radical Italian Arte Povera movement, Pistoletto created his first Mirror Paintings in 1961–62. These influential works earned him international acclaim and have become a hallmark of his oeuvre. Robilant+Voena’s recent exhibition in Dover Street, London, presented works by Pistoletto divided across two rooms: the first room showcasing black and white mirror pieces, and the second offering mirror works in bold colours. "I do not call it black and white because the mirror doesn't have the colour white. I call it light: light mirror." "You are already in the painting." "We have to decide if we want peace or war."
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James Snyder - 216 - Alain Elkann Interviews
11/29/2024
James Snyder - 216 - Alain Elkann Interviews
James Snyder was Deputy Director of MoMA from 1986 to 1996. He then led the Israel Museum in Jerusalem through 22 years of dramatic growth, securing its stature as one of the world's foremost museums. In 2023 Snyder became Helen Goldsmith Menschel Director of the Jewish Museum in New York, which has been located in the former Warburg Mansion at 1109 5th Ave at 92nd Street since 1947. The Jewish Museum maintains a unique collection of nearly 30,000 works of art and archeology, ceremonial objects, and media reflecting the global Jewish experience over more than 3,500 years...... "We are all foreigners, wherever we are. Even at home, we are foreigners." "....an important point about the history of the region is to understand how, during the Ottoman Empire, there were not countries but rather cultures...." "...there does not have to be a disconnect between your core identity and your cultural identity."
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Ai Weiwei - 215 - Alain Elkann Interviews
11/17/2024
Ai Weiwei - 215 - Alain Elkann Interviews
COMPLETELY FRESH. Ai Weiwei is a contemporary artist, writer and humanitarian activist. Born in China in 1957, from 1981 to 1993 he lived in the United States. He currently has three exhibitions in New York: Child’s Play is at the Vito Schnabel Gallery at both 455 W 19th Street and 360 W 11th Street, and What You See is What You See is at Faurschou New York, 148 Green Street, Brooklyn. Ai Weiwei’s exhibitions run to late February 2025. “I don’t belong to anywhere at all or to any group, and I’m still trying to find out what is left, as a human and as an individual.” “Prison is one kind of human condition.” “You have to act out what you believe and make some actions, not just to change the world, but it’s really self-teaching to change yourself. I change daily.”
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Sir Norman Rosenthal - 214 - Alain Elkann Interviews
11/10/2024
Sir Norman Rosenthal - 214 - Alain Elkann Interviews
STILL PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES. Sir Norman Rosenthal celebrated his 80th birthday on November 8th 2024. A curator and art historian, he was Exhibitions Officer at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, a curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and for many years Exhibitions Secretary at the Royal Academy in London. Recently he curated Georg Baselitz: The Last Decade at the Sabancı Museum in Istanbul. His Roberto Matta 1911-2002 opened at Ca’ Pesaro, Venice on October 25th 2024, and he is curating David Hockney’s April 2025 exhibition at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris. "Art is a complex story, and one has to pick out the great artists who have their own vision of the world." "I always liked to do things with other people." "I'm very proud to be having a dialogue with David Hockney"
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Joseph Rykwert - 213 - Alain Elkann Interviews
11/03/2024
Joseph Rykwert - 213 - Alain Elkann Interviews
IN MEMORIAM. Joseph Rykwert CBE died on October 18th 2024 at the age of 98. One of the foremost architectural historians and critics of his generation, Rykwert spent most of his working life in the UK and the USA. He was the Paul Philippe Cret Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and taught the history and theory of architecture at several institutions in Europe and North America. His many influential works on architecture include The Idea of a Town (1963), On Adam’s House in Paradise (1972), The Orders of Architecture (1982), The Dancing Column (1996), and The Seduction of Place (2000). All of his books have been translated into several languages. I visited Joseph often at his house in London’s Hampstead, and on 9th July 2021 he generously agreed for our conversation to be recorded and to take part in what would become this final interview. We publish it here for the first time because it was made to be able to remember and celebrate Joseph’s ‘gloriously erudite’, light-hearted voice at the time of his passing. Sadly, even if he lived to a considerable age, that time is now upon us. "I don't think there's one outstanding figure in my generation, there are a lot of second rank figures but there was not one figure of the stature of Corbusier." "Frank Lloyd Wright was a genius. Some of Wright’s buildings are impressive. I met him once, but not as a pupil. He was very antipatico, very exploitative of all the people who came to learn from him." "I think of myself as superficial and ignorant, because I just haven't read enough."
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Lorenzo Fiaschi - 212 - Alain Elkann Interviews
10/27/2024
Lorenzo Fiaschi - 212 - Alain Elkann Interviews
CONTINUING THE RENAISSANCE. Lorenzo Fiaschi is one of the three friends who founded the very prestigious Galleria Continua art gallery in San Gimignano, the town with a fantastic and famous skyline of medieval towers in Tuscany, Italy. "We aimed to be in the moment, to continue from the past, and to move toward the future. That's why the name: Galleria Continua." "My idea was to build bridges to help Cuba — cultural bridges between Cuba and the rest of the world." "It's about seeing people happy and enjoying the projects we are doing when they say, 'Wow!' — creating emotions."
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Alexandra Mousavizadeh - 210 - Alain Elkann Interviews
10/13/2024
Alexandra Mousavizadeh - 210 - Alain Elkann Interviews
INDEXING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. Alexandra Mousavizadeh is a Danish economist and CEO of Evident, an intelligence platform that benchmarks and tracks Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption across the financial services sector. Prior to June 2022 Alexandra was a partner at Tortoise Media in London and creator of The Responsibility 100 Index and The Global AI Index. Alexandra specialises in index creation, using data to build benchmarks that rank nations and companies on key social and technological issues. “We have never seen technology change this quickly.” “Implementing AI in a business is a difficult task and requires a compete re-think of how the business is organised.” “The race has never been this intense before.”
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Thomas Persson - 209 - Alain Elkann Interviews
10/06/2024
Thomas Persson - 209 - Alain Elkann Interviews
AN HOMAGE TO FRIENDSHIP. Thomas Persson is a creative director, editor and brand consultant. His understanding of fashion, culture and corporate identity is a resource for global fashion and beauty companies in their visual communication and brand building projects. He created “Acne Paper” an acclaimed magazine published by Acne Studios. He art directed global advertising campaigns for leading fashion brands including Armani and he made two books on the legendary photographer Snowdon. Today he is once again at the editorial helm of a reborn “Acne Paper”. “A magazine is a beautiful way to connect with the world.” “There is something about the book and some magazines that, when they are well done, the Internet and social media can’t really compete with it, because it’s an object.” “There’s always one favourite image that sings to me, so it’s not a difficult choice, it stands out.”
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Erdem Moralioglu - 208 - Alain Elkann Interviews
09/29/2024
Erdem Moralioglu - 208 - Alain Elkann Interviews
CELEBRATING INDIVIDUAL SELF-EXPRESSION. Erdem Moralıoglu is a British fashion designer and the eponymous founder of London-based fashion label Erdem, which he established in 2005. His Spring Summer 2025 collection was shown at the British Museum’s South Entrance amidst its 45 feet high columns. The show was based on The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, published in 1928 and banned in the same year. The book gives voice and form to the love of two women at a time when the idea of gay love between two women was not even illegal, its very existence was denied as impossible. For Spring Summer 2025 Erdem pays homage to this story of the love of Stephen Gordon, a woman living as a man, and her relationship with Mary Llewellyn. "I wonder if Radclyffe today would be considered non-binary or trans." "When you see someone wearing something that you've designed that might be almost 20 years old, but it's absorbed into their life and they wear it in their own way, I find that really wonderful!" "You can't help but look backwards when you're about to turn 20, but it also feels like the beginning."
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Dr Amin Jaffer - 207 - Alain Elkann Interviews
09/22/2024
Dr Amin Jaffer - 207 - Alain Elkann Interviews
EXPLORING HYBRIDITY. Dr Amin Jaffer is Director of The Al Thani Collection. He is responsible for working with the Centre des Monuments Nationaux and a global team in the creation of a museum space for The Al Thani Collection at the Hôtel de la Marine, Paris. He is also Artistic Director of the 2025 edition of the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah. For 10 years he was International Director of Asian Art at Christie’s. At London’s Victoria and Albert Museum he was External Exhibition Curator responsible for the exhibition Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts. "When I went to meet the maharajas I was fascinated by their hybrid existence." "When we do an exhibition at The Al Thani Collection we don't just show beautiful things. There has always to be a very strong premise behind it and a real purpose." "When the French public came to see the Renaissance show, their response was that they had no idea The Al Thani Collection is so rich in the Renaissance."
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Gad Elmaleh - 206 - Alain Elkann Interviews
09/15/2024
Gad Elmaleh - 206 - Alain Elkann Interviews
A MISSION TO MAKE PEOPLE LAUGH. Gad Elmaleh is a stand-up comedian. Born in Morocco, after attending French schools in Casablanca he went to Montreal for 4 years. He was a political science student for a year, worked on radio, wrote humorous stories and played them in night clubs. In 1992 he took The Cours Florent theatre course in Paris. Through his one-man shows Décalages and La Vie Normale Gad was revealed as a humorist, and he is an actor who starred in various movies. Gad has two sons: Noé with actress Anne Brochet, and Raphael with Charlotte Casiraghi. "I love doing movies, but there is nothing I found in my life that can equal and get to the same level of intensity, excitement, adrenaline as the madness of the live performance." "We experienced such a peaceful relation and fraternity in Morocco with Jews and Muslims. This is quite unique in an Arab country." "Making people laugh is a great thing, but also is a therapy for a lot of people."
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Kamel Mennour - 205 - Alain Elkann Interviews
08/25/2024
Kamel Mennour - 205 - Alain Elkann Interviews
WRITING NEW CHAPTERS. Kamel Mennour is an Algerian-born French art dealer. In 1999 he founded Galerie Kamel Mennour in Paris. Today Mennour is a contemporary art gallery representing over forty artists with four exhibition locations in Paris. “I was part of the art scene which was offering a very stimulating position for Paris as a big place on the world map for art.” “The work has to have something very particular that I can become obsessed with.” “We are growing a trinity between the artist with his artworks, the gallery, and the collector.”
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Leonardo Ferragamo - 203 - Alain Elkann Interviews
08/11/2024
Leonardo Ferragamo - 203 - Alain Elkann Interviews
REINTERPRETING HERITAGE IN THE NEW WORLD. Leonardo Ferragamo, the fifth son of Salvatore and Wanda Ferragamo, is the Chairman of Salvatore Ferragamo S.p.A. since 2021. He studied economics at the University of Lausanne (UNIL), then at Columbia University. He started working for Ferragamo in menswear, and created Ferragamo Men Division. Today, he is also President of the Lungarno Collection of hotels in Florence, Rome and Milan, and CEO of Palazzo Feroni Finanziaria, one of the Ferragamo family’s two holding companies, which operates in real estate and other diversified businesses. Leonardo Ferragamo is also President of Sawa SRL, which has to do with his personal love of sailing boats and in particular the Nautor Swan yachts, to ensure whose future on August 1st 2024 he sold to Sanlorenzo, a worldwide leader in the production of made-to-measure yachts. “Heritage is one side of a river from which to build the bridge into the future.” “I want to make sure that the long-term future of a company and a brand like Swan, loved by so many people around the world, has a route over perennity, supported by a very credible group so as to launch it in the long-term future.” “You have to know what you’re going towards, what can happen to you, and you have to be aware of the unexpected things that can happen, and when they happen be prepared how to face them and not be scared because they are happening.”
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