Daniela Petroff, a respected Associated Press journalist who spent nearly 40 years covering fashion and Vatican news, passed away Tuesday at her Rome home at age 80. The multilingual reporter helped establish AP’s fashion coverage during the rise of designers like Giorgio Armani and survived a personal tragedy when her daughter was killed in a 1985 terrorist attack.
A veteran Associated Press journalist who spent nearly four decades reporting on fashion and Vatican affairs has passed away in Rome at age 80.
Daniela Petroff died Tuesday at her residence while recovering from a recent fall, according to her husband Victor Simpson, who previously served as AP’s Rome bureau chief.
Before joining the Associated Press, Petroff worked as a correspondent for The Chicago Tribune and Time magazine in Rome. She later became a cornerstone of AP’s cultural reporting, establishing comprehensive coverage of Milan’s fashion weeks that included both men’s and women’s collections throughout the year.
The Simpson family faced devastating loss in 1985 when their 11-year-old daughter Natasha was killed in the December 27 terrorist attack at Rome’s airport, which also injured their son Michael. Two years later, when their youngest daughter Debbie was born, Pope John Paul II personally called to offer congratulations to Petroff.
Simpson announced his wife’s passing, writing that she had fallen asleep after lunch and chose not to wake up, “to finally embrace again her beloved Natasha.”
Speaking four languages fluently – Italian, German, French, and English – Petroff pioneered AP’s Milan fashion reporting during Giorgio Armani’s emergence as a global designer. Her approach emphasized factual, concise reporting while avoiding personal opinions and critiques.
“She had a gift for putting the facts into kind of a very artful context,” said Lisa Anderson, who reported on Milan fashion for The Chicago Tribune starting in the mid-1980s. “She looked at that industry, which often takes itself too seriously, with a lot of amusement as well as respect, which is probably the right combination of qualities to approach fashion reporting.”
Petroff’s final AP article appeared in September – an authoritative piece about Armani following the designer’s death.
“Starting with an unlined jacket, a simple pair of pants and an urban palette, Armani put Italian ready-to-wear style on the international fashion map in the late 1970s, creating an instantly recognizable relaxed silhouette that has propelled the fashion house for half a century,” Petroff wrote.
Throughout her career, she documented the emergence of major fashion figures including Gianni Versace, Gucci during Tom Ford’s leadership, Karl Lagerfeld’s work at Fendi, and the Missoni fashion family. She frequently applied her fashion expertise and writing skills to Vatican coverage as well.
In a 2014 article about Pope Francis’ newly appointed cardinals, she wrote: “But with the ‘slum pope’ now calling the sartorial shots, fashionistas and Vaticanistas are wondering how his new cardinals — who hail from some of the poorest places on Earth, including Haiti, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast — will dress themselves for their new role.”
Beyond fashion and Vatican news, Petroff reported on major Italian cultural events, including the 2003 reopening of Venice’s La Fenice opera house following a devastating fire. “True to its namesake the phoenix, La Fenice has risen up from the ashes,” she wrote for the reopening coverage.
Born in 1945 in Mecklenburg, Germany, Petroff spent her childhood in Paris before moving to New York, where she attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart Catholic school. As an only child, she relocated with her parents to Rome for her final two high school years, graduating from Marymount International School.
Following studies at Manhattanville College in New York, Petroff returned to Rome and earned a degree in modern languages from La Sapienza University. She met Victor Simpson, then AP’s new news editor, shortly after returning to Rome. The couple married in 1973.
Gail Willett Bejarano, a childhood friend from New York, remembered ice-skating adventures in Central Park, after-school treats at Schrafft’s, and testing boundaries with the Sacred Heart nuns. Despite being an excellent student, Petroff joined other girls in sneaking looks at boys from nearby Loyola school, “hike your uniform up and put lipstick on, all forbidden,” Bejarano recalled.
Following her 2017 retirement from AP, Petroff devoted her time to Marymount, her former school, where she served as board chair.
A private funeral service is set for Thursday, with a memorial service planned for Monday at Marymount.
Petroff leaves behind her husband Simpson, son Michael, and daughter Debbie.