

It was early 1999, about a year after Reggiani had been convicted and sentenced to 29 years in prison for commissioning Maurizio Gucci’s murder. The next time Forden communicated with Reggiani, she was behind bars in the city’s San Vittore Prison. “The interview was pure vitriol: Patrizia was in a phase where she was worried that Maurizio was going to lose the company.

“Patrizia was on a personal campaign to discredit and destroy Maurizio and had reached out to various media outlets for interviews,” Forden said, referring to Reggiani’s ex-husband, Maurizio Gucci, who was head of the famed fashion house at the time. It was 1993, and Reggiani had invited Forden-then the Milan Bureau Chief for Women’s Wear Daily-to sit down with her at her luxury apartment overlooking the fashion capital’s Piazza San Babila. The first time Sara Forden interviewed Italian socialite Patrizia Reggiani, she was in her penthouse, climbing the walls.
