While the world is gearing up to converge on Milan next week for the Winter Olympics, Alberta Ferretti took the opposite route, exceptionally decamping from the Italian fashion capital in favor of the warmer climes of Dubai.
Asked to be the guest designer of the local fashion week, the Italian house opened the event — running through Friday — with a fashion show staged on Sunday that marked its first full-scale presentation in the Middle East.
If the move represented a strategic opportunity to further expand the company’s international visibility and deepen its ties with a key market for luxury, for creative director Lorenzo Serafini it was also the result of an affinity between the brand and the city.
“Today Dubai is a cultural crossroads where tradition and transformation coexist and this dialogue deeply resonates with the values of the collection,” he said ahead of the show.
Despite the challenges that come with unveiling a fall lineup three weeks ahead of the usual timing, Serafini said his creative process wasn’t impacted by the change in location as “our woman of reference is international. It’s not about responding to a specific market need, but capturing a common feeling, an idea of taste that transcends territorial barriers.…This is why our starting point isn’t a specific place, but a shared attitude.”
Under Serafini, said attitude centers on the ideas of nuanced femininity, whispered seduction and discreet elegance aimed at reassuring the wearer rather than pleasing the eyes of others. They are all concepts the designer groups under the concept of “progressive romantics,” which he introduced with his debut at the brand last year.
For fall 2026, its eveningwear expression is likely to resonate with the Middle Eastern audience the most, with all the flouncy chiffon gowns flowing on the catwalk and oozing languid ease in their soft silhouettes, and with the occasional ostrich feather embellishments, beaded embroideries and the shimmery surfaces of caped frocks adding an ornamental zing to the discreet lineup. Still, essential caped dresses cut from velvet shined the brightest, radiating a polished aura with their clean lines and intense ruby or aubergine colors.
Serafini’s goal to blend grace and restraint also informed his daywear, which revealed the Victorian-era inspiration he anchored his fall 2026 collection on. This informed the interplay between feminine and masculine, structure and fluidity and the closer-to-the-body shapes he embraced, especially in tailoring, where twisted jackets and sleek leather options offset the softness of see-through ruched shirts and the relaxed volumes of pleated pants.
Finished with subtle shibori-like treatments, lamb and eel leathers were also deployed for pencil skirts and outerwear that added to the unfussy lineup, which Serafini grounded in practical flat ballerinas and slouchy boots.
