Concreteness, for Alberta Ferretti, is an expression of femininity: the ability to live in the present time and respond with leathery lightness. At a time when there are few certainties, Alberta Ferretti works on the certainty of personal mark, craft, and the women for whom she does it. She puts the body at the center, which she enhances through the craftsmanship of careful handwork.
Light and textural, the collection reaffirms the signs of an unmistakable style that reconciles opposites in ineffable harmony. Lengths are extreme: short to the point of boldness, or extended and floaty. Volumes are soft, airy, or sculpt the figure and celebrate it. The garments layer and cover, impalpable, or shrink and uncover, leaving a hip, back, waist in view. Colors are soft and natural, or turn on in the vivid glow of precious stones – ruby, turquoise, emerald, amethyst – to subside in the seductive placidity of black.
It is a sinuous, undulating movement, starting with liquid dusters worn with crocheted tops and pants moved by deep darts, continuing with small pleated tablecloths, blouses worn with long skirts overlapping pants. Masculine-looking jackets have an elongated and decidedly feminine fall. Encrustations of macro sangallo run through dresses and jumpsuits. Bangs dance, move, seduce. Knot, weave, drape are recurring motifs: tops, dresses and pants of hand-knitted cord; long and short dresses held up by jeweled inserts of colored resins; crinolines molded on like mulieval armor; and then small bags of leather mats and flat sandals, with wedges, tied around the foot.
The butterfly, a unique print and symbol of rebirth and metamorphosis, captures the spirit of the collection. Its colors inspire pictorial degradé effects on evening gowns; its present lightness guides a material path that from silks and fluid linens ends in the most airy and delicate chiffons.