Fortune's Children by Bruce Weber for Vanity Fair

May 22, 2009

LAPO ELKANN Born: October 7, 1977, in New York City. Parents: Fiat heiress Margherita Agnelli and novelist Alain Elkann. Siblings: Fiat vice-chairman John Elkann and Ginevra Elkann, vice president of Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli museum in Turin. Residences: “Turin is a family house, Milan is my flat, Paris is my flat, New York is my flat.” Education: Sainte-Croix des Neiges in the French Alps, Lycée Charlemagne in Paris, London Guildhall University. Occupation: Entrepreneur and designer; founder of Italia Independent fashion brand and Independent Ideas advertising agency. Can be found at: L’Esplanade in Paris, Bar Pitti in N.Y.C., Caffè Mulassano in Turin. Causes: “Italy and Israel”; Tel Hashomer hospital, in Tel Aviv; international ambassador for Italy’s Triennale Design Museum. Quote: “Life is complicated and hard, but that doesn’t mean that you cannot find time, energy, passion, and love to be delivered to others.” Photographed on the tender of the Stealth, the yacht designed for his grandfather Gianni Agnelli, off the coast of Cannes.