December 19, 2025 |
Cult publishers Idea have teamed up with Francesca Sorrenti, the photographer and mother of the late, great Davide Sorrenti, to produce a book documenting the photographer’s unbridled creativity. Davide, who passed away aged just 20 in 1997, rose to prominence during the ’90s for his grunge-tinged, dark-hued imagery. Despite the tragic shortness of his career, Davide nevertheless made his mark on the landscape of fashion, one that would remain for years to come. Now, fans can experience Davide’s work like never before, with the release of Davide Sorrenti Journals: Volume 1 1994-1995. Edited by Francesca, the offering is a raw insight into Davide’s creative process, featuring two of the many journals he used as a home for his overflowing ideas. Drawings, snippets of writing, contact sheets, test prints and flyers litter the pages, creating a messy, honest and beautiful mosaic of Davide’s life and art. Coined as a “living archive of his world,” the book is a must-have for anyone fascinated by the idiosyncrasies of a true, singular talent. Here, we hear more from Francesca about the project.
This is the third Idea publication you have edited featuring the work of your son Davide Sorrenti – how was this experience different to before?
The first three Idea books, ArgueSke, Polaroids and My Beautiful Life, allowed myself to explore his images with more freedom, more distance and more curiosity. I dug deeper into his photographs, his contact sheets, his references, almost like stepping into his creative process rather than simply documenting it. It also felt more expansive. Davide’s world was full of energy, humour, tenderness and rebellion, and those books let me show more of that spectrum. Instead of creating a memorial, I was building a conversation, between his vision and my memory, between his era and the present. So this time, it wasn’t about completing a chapter. It was about opening one. I focused on preserving, protecting and presenting the material exactly as he left it. This first journal shows the beginning of Dave’s life into photography and documenting his friends his family and the moments he held most precious.
These journals are a raw and intimate look into Davide’s creativity – why did you feel it was important to share these with a wider audience?
This first journal captures Davide at a moment when he was just beginning to define how he saw the world. It’s full of his raw, youthful curiosity, the way he saw his friends, the energy around him, the small details that would eventually shape his creative eye. I felt it was important to share this because it shows the early starting of his voice. Before the industry, before the mythology, before the seriousness of being an artist, there was simply a 16 year old teenager paying attention. These pages show the sincerity of that beginning, how he absorbed his surroundings, how much he cared about his circle, how he turned everyday moments into something meaningful. Sharing this journal isn’t about exposing his youth, it’s about honouring it. It lets people see the foundation of his creativity: the friendships, the street life, the humour, the vulnerability, the early signs of the artist he would become. To me, that origin story is just as important as the finished work.
Do you have a favourite part of the journal?
I don’t have a favourite part of the book, because this journal isn’t something I experienced in pieces. It’s one continuous thread of Davide’s early voice, his thoughts, his observations, his friendships, his beginnings. To quote a “favourite” would feel like separating something that was never meant to be divided. The power of this journal is in its totality. It’s not about one page standing out more than another; it’s about watching a young artist take shape as you move through it. Every entry, even the quiet ones, contributes to that.
What feeling do you hope people are left with after looking through the publication?
What I hope people feel is a sense of closeness, like they’ve been allowed to step into the early world of a young boy who was just beginning to understand himself. This journal isn’t about the fashion industry or the mythology that later surrounded Davide. It’s about a teenager observing life with sincerity, curiosity, and instinct. I want people to feel the honesty of that. The warmth of his friendships. The humour. The vulnerability. The beginnings of an artist’s mind taking shape before anyone, including him, fully realised it. If anything, I hope readers are left with a deeper understanding that creativity often starts quietly, with paying attention, with caring deeply about your surroundings, with documenting the people who matter to you. So, the feeling I hope stays with them is connection, his youth, and the raw beginnings of the voice he would later become known for.
What is it about this publication which provides a greater insight into Davide’s life that we haven’t got before?
The journals provide an insight we’ve never had before because they show Davide from the inside out, the young boy. The previous publications all present his visual world: the people he photographed, the energy of the ’90s, the style and intimacy of his imagery. But the journals reveal the “why” behind it. They show his private thoughts, his humour, his insecurities, his frustrations and the way he processed the world long before he turned it into photographs. You begin to understand not just what he saw, but how he saw, the internal engine behind the images. We’ve seen his eye through his photography. The journals let us see his vision. We’ve seen the exterior world he documented; the journals open the door to his interior world. That’s what makes this publication different. It adds the missing dimension: his mind at work, in real time, before the final image, before the edits, before the legend. It’s the closest we’ve come to understanding Davide as a real life person, not only an artist, or a figure of the ’90s, but a young person thinking, questioning, and creating from a place of the heart.
Davide Sorrenti Journals: Volume 1 1994-1995 is available to purchase here.
Photography courtesy of Idea.
