While fashion celebrates the outward-facing manifestations of human creativity and expression, genomics is the ultimate biological wellspring for all of those traits. And in fashion, as in all walks of life, brilliant and creative individuals and their families are tragically impacted by cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and other conditions that we now know have largely genetic causes.

Franca Sozzani, the revered long-time editor of Vogue Italia, was one such person whose extraordinary life was cut short in December 2016 by a rare cancer.

To honor Franca's memory, her son Francesco has partnered with Harvard Medical School to establish the Franca Fund and has made this his foremost philanthropic endeavor.