Alberta Ferretti Pre-Fall 2022 Collection

Alberta Ferretti is a romantic pragmatist: “It isn’t an attitude of escape to avoid problems and live in a fantasy world,” she said over Zoom. “Romanticism for me is rather a filter that helps you through the hardships of today’s world. Thinking about beauty makes it easier to endure our difficult times.”

True to her practical yet dreamy spirit, she approached pre-fall with “assertive gentleness,” proposing everyday pieces designed individually. “I’ve tried to give each of them a character, adding some special details, a sort of identity which extends their life span and makes them different and original.”

To that end, she developed wardrobe staples imaginatively, reducing her penchant for decoration to a minimum while focusing on the use of elaborate textures. Working with her artisans, she experimented with new technologies on the creation of interesting surfaces, like an array of compact sustainable wools, graphic mixes of patterns and fringed options, luminous taffetas, and precious mikado silks. The utilitarian feel of field jackets, bombers, and trenchcoats was given a feminine twist with flourishes of ruffles, trailing ribbons and bows. Playing on opposites, high-waisted leather pants worn with abbreviated sporty jackets were shown side by side with ruffled minidresses, cut short and frilly. A belted coat in python-printed black leather was paired with flared plants in see-through black lace. For evening, Ferretti indulged in dreamy numbers in layered chiffon, but a flame red pouf-sleeved long dress whose skirt was delicately laser-cut signaled the designer’s take on new decorative effects.

For Ferretti, women are built with inner strength (no surprise here), so they don’t need many bells and whistles to enhance their natural resilience. Yet a dress can hold beautiful memories, embedding sentiments or speaking to their sense of poetry and sensuality, which makes strength no less persuasive. “This is surely a peculiar moment, full of challenges and twists and turns,” she said. “The way we dress can give us the confidence to confront it, conveying the many stories each woman wants to tell.”