Alberta Ferretti has long been the arbiter of easy holiday glamour, so who better to guide us into the travel-heavy revelry of post-pandemic life than she? For Spring/Summer 2022, a collection presented in Milan overnight, Ferretti showed clothes made to move in: to billow in the wind, to ripple along the body, or to swirl in a cacophony of draped chiffon on some fabulous dance floor. “At a time where there are few certainties, Alberta Ferretti works on the works on the certainty of the personal signature, of the metier, and of the women for whom she does it,” read the show’s notes, highlighting that the collection was built around the senses of touch and feel.
There was a compelling mix of pragmatic wearability and playful frivolity on display: statement crochet shirts were paired with sensible wide-leg trousers or soft duster coats; petite embroidered cotton day-dresses were layered over pants and worn with flat lace-up sandals; macrame trousers were dressed down with skimpy bralettes and chunky statement jewellery. There was something refreshingly unfussy about the whole collection: Ferretti understood that after 18 months spent inside we’re collectively gagging for Mediterranean glam, but don’t yet have the willpower to engage with anything that’s too high maintenance.
Highlights—as with every Alberta Ferretti collection—were the evening dresses, the aforementioned delicate chiffon gowns in either super-short and floor-skimming hemlines, finished in a compelling jewel-toned color palette of turquoise, amethyst, emerald and ruby. And then there were the butterfly prints, appearing on silk trousers, or blown to abstract proportions on emerald gowns. It was a stroke of quiet genius (and is already a key motif of the season). There is perhaps no greater symbol to capture our current moment than the butterfly. It may be a gesture of naive optimism, but don’t we all like to think of ourselves as finally ready to emerge from the anxiety-riddled cocoon of 2021, more dynamic and beautiful than ever?
