Alberta Ferretti Resort 2026 Collection

Lorenzo Serafini’s February debut as successor to Alberta Ferretti at her namesake brand was entitled Progressive Romantics. For this resort follow-up he expanded beyond that starting point, working to both broaden and refine his own dialect of Ferretti’s long-established and hyper-feminine design language.

At the rail, Serafini approached the dress in look one with the pragmatic expertise of a designer intimately versed in the mechanics of dressmaking and whose primary consideration is user-experience. “This is especially nice, because it’s stretchy and cut on the bias, so it’s very comfortable. And there’s this interesting contrast of shiny in the fabric and matte in the lace.” We then paused at a white dress with ruffles at the neck and the waist that was cut in airily knit mohair from which dropped a skirt of finely meshed ivory lace: “it opens from the waist down into some really interesting but also easy to wear volumes, and above it fits to the body but is also super flexible and forgiving,” he noted.

A spaghetti strapped gown with a botanical detail was cut in a zingy lemon yellow silk both simple and rich. Serafini said that a recent trip to the Middle East as well as conversations with clients worldwide had convinced him that the brand’s core mission was to deliver “beautiful, highly considered dresses.” His observation was that clients who are inclined to wear shorter pieces preferred those pieces to be more structured, while those who tended to longer looks enjoyed seeing fluidity and movement in the garments. Both were catered to in a series of pieces that incorporated Ferretti-signature florals as hand-drawn illustrations for botanical classification on organza and tulle. Metallic micromesh pants and dresses dotted with tiny rhinestones made the wearer the bouquet.

This collection also saw him explore tailoring in a sleeker, more fitted incarnation than is currently conventional in fashion, against which he suggested wearing a selection of ornately constructed but unfussily fabricated blouses and tops. The shoe offer included scrunchy patent ballerinas, pastel horsehair driving shoes, and a chic sandal with a woven cotton toe strap that spread up across the foot towards the ankle like wings. Pants and outerwear in shiny coated linen, some denim pieces (a category personally beloved of Serafini), and cargo pants in fine, crispy cotton all featured adroitly applied details lifted from military and utility wear. “I think even when you are in fashion you have to think about utility and usability,” he said: “that’s a vital part of what makes wearing something beautiful satisfying to the wearer.”