Alberta Ferretti is stepping down as creative director of the eponymous brand she founded in 1981, the designer announced this morning.
“On September 17th, you attended my last fashion show,” wrote the designer in a letter sent out this morning via email. “It was a difficult, complicated, but a very thoughtful choice. But today, with serenity and awareness, I inform you of my decision to leave the creative direction of the brand I founded, which bears and will continue to bear my name,” the designer announced in a letter on Tuesday. In it, she name checks key collaborators Peter Lindbergh, Steven Meisel, Franca Sozzani and Paolo Roversi.
The show was, in hindsight, an homage to Ferretti’s signatures, with a focus on flowing chiffon gowns alongside modern daywear, presented under the colonnade of the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology.
Ferretti grew up in her family’s dressmaking shop before opening her own boutique as a teenager, where she began to create her own clothes to be sold alongside other Italian designers. She launched her label in 1981 and has remained true to its signature gentle feminine silhouettes ever since. As relevant today as she was back then, Ferretti has gone viral recently as the outfitter of the Folklore era in Taylor Swift’s eras tour.
The 74-year-old designer will remain in her role as Vice President of her family business, Aeffe Group, which operates her eponymous brand alongside Moschino, Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini and Pollini. In her open letter, she thanks her brother Massimo Ferretti, the group chairman. Aeffe doesn’t break out individual brands, but group sales dropped 9 per cent to €319 million in 2023, following the changeover of creative directors at the Moschino brand. While changes at Ferretti may cause further challenges in the short term, the designer says she will name her successor “soon”.