Francesco Clark is really more Italian than American. Although he grew up splitting time between New York and Bologna, where his mother is from, he spent summers visiting his great uncle’s apartment facing Rome’s famous Trevi Fountain, and his partner is from Trento. “It was my first language and first food,” he says. “It’s my second nature now.”
In his 20s, Francesco suffered a terrible accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. In the years following, he came to terms with his changed reality and became an entrepreneur who now travels widely for work and leisure. At PRIOR, we wanted to learn about the challenges that face the disabled when traveling and how the travel industry may strive to accommodate all. Now based in Bronxville, a village outside New York City, Clark still travels back to Italy every year—and he knows how to keep his skin looking dewy amidst all the flights and time zones. As the founder of Clark’s Botanicals, a clinically clean skincare line powered by botanicals, he’s got a lifetime supply of jasmine-infused moisturizer.
PRIOR speaks with Clark about why he pivoted from fashion to skincare, what Italy means to him, and what his showoff spots are in his hometown—well, hometowns...both of them.
Why did you start Clark's Botanicals?
One of the side effects of a spinal cord injury I sustained in my 20s was that my skin stopped sweating. I had a patchy mix of rosacea, acne, and dry, flaky skin, and nothing had been working for me. I turned to my father, who’s a homeopathic doctor as well as a traditional medical doctor, and said, “You have to help me look like myself again.” So, we started to make things at home. I never intended to sell it as a brand, and I came into the process not knowing anything about ingredients or formulating a product, but I love the science behind skincare, and I approached it by reading everything I could find.
It took us three years and 78 different formulations to settle on the right formula. We went through all of these different natural oils and essential extracts that would just make my skin worse. (My father was always clear: Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's going to be good for your skin.) By chance, I read an article in a nature magazine on the positive effects of jasmine, so we started to look into it. We then went through another round of formulations until we got to what is now the Jasmine Catalyst Complex, which is in all of our products. It made my skin look good again, it made me feel good again, and then I noticed that the 12 glass vials on my desk became 9. Then there were 5 left. My sister was taking them! And then my mom started using it.
Let’s step back a moment. Do you mind sharing the story of your spinal cord injury?
The weekend after I was promoted at Harper's Bazaar, at 24 years old, I went to Long Island, where I was sharing a summer house with a group of friends. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, and I dove into the pool. I dove because I saw the metal ring ladder that is normally at the deep end of the pool—but as soon as I dove in, I realized that it was the shallow end. My chin slammed into the bottom with such force, it snapped my head back and shattered my C3 and C4 vertebrae.
