Alberta Ferretti

MILAN, September 27, 2005
By Sarah Mower
These days, what's significant about Alberta Ferretti's collections comes at the end of her shows, when she sends out her victory parade of long dresses. Dramatically framed in a spotlight, they embody the drift toward a less eroticized, more fragile special-occasion prettiness that appeals to Young Hollywood. Sex-bomb bling is definitively over.

The fashion news from this collection was compressed into that last sequence: Empire line, traily grosgrain bows beneath the bust, pale chiffon draped over opaque linings, and a vague glance in the direction of an arty, early twentieth-century Poiret-influenced silhouette.

As for the buildup to this finale, it too was a light run-through of 1900's Arts and Crafts references—a train of thought instigated by last season's excursion into the Wiener Werkstätte at Louis Vuitton. There were loose, color-blocked dresses (Milan is rejecting the waist, by the way) made from panels of pleated chiffon and charmeuse, as well as painted ivy leaf and checkerboard motifs co-opted from Viennese café tile designs. Nothing scarily intellectual, of course—but Ferretti has found a clever way to seize the moment.

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