Front row at NYFW, a lavish wedding featured in Vogue: Now one of the world’s biggest fashion influencers is facing five years’ jail time
NY Post
Chiara Ferragni, a wildly glamorous fashion influencer who still boasts more than 28 million Instagram followers, was once a fixture on the Big Apple fashion scene.
At New York Fashion Week, she would post pictures of herself sitting front row at coveted catwalk shows, cozying up to Karlie Kloss and “The Real Housewives of New York” star Rebecca Minkoff, and using landmarks like the Empire State Building as backdrops in enviable Instagram snaps shared with social media fans.
And when she donned a crocheted lace Christian Dior dress to marry Italian rapper Federico Leonardo “Fedez” Lucia in 2018, her extravagant wedding at a 19th-century Sicilian palazzo was featured in American Vogue, not to mention observed by a documentary film and reality TV crew.
But the 38-year-old Italian — who used her fame to build a fortune in the millions of dollars — has had a spectacular fall from grace and is now facing five years in prison after being indicted on charges of aggravated fraud in her home country.
She already appeared at the Court of Milan for pre-trial hearings on Sept. 23 and Nov. 4, with another court appearance set for next Tuesday, Nov. 25.
She’s been fined $1.27 million for conning the public into thinking she was selling Christmas treats for charity when the vast bulk of cash was going straight into her pockets (she paid an extra $1.39 million for a similar scheme over fake claims that Easter eggs would also underwrite a kids’ hospital).
After exactly 120 years, the curtain has fallen on the Theater District institution Barbetta, with the iconic Italian restaurant having served its final course Friday night.