About the Foundation
Elsa Peretti, born in Florence, is the youngest daughter of Nando Peretti (1896-1977), a distinguished business man who built Anonima Petroli Italiana (API) into one of the leading Italian oil companies. She was educated in Rome and Switzerland.
Elsa's outspoken personality, intolerant of the conventions of her milieu, led her to seek a different approach to life. This search marked her restless youth, during which she lived in many different countries. Two places are particularly significant to her: Barcelona, where she undertook a career as fashion model, and New York, where she started what was to become her main activity: designing. After working with such leading fashion designers such as Giorgio di Sant'Angelo, Halston, and many more, she joined Tiffany and Co. in 1974. Since then she continues adding new items to her collection.
The main source of inspiration for Elsa has always been nature. The same gift which enables her to abstract the essence of a shape from the details surrounding it has brought her to develop a particular attention to life even in its humblest forms. Over time, this aesthetic enchantment grew into an active concern over the future of our planet. In this process, two major challenges stand out as the core of her struggle to give concrete help to our future: the defense of environment and the empowerment of children through the protection of their right to education and health. At the beginning of the new millennium she realizes what she considers the most ambitious achievement of her life, that of assembling a staff of motivated people in a Foundation able to take up these challenges.
This Foundation is dedicated to her father, Nando.
