Alberta Ferretti: From Gowns to Cars
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TURIN, Italy — “I want the driver to feel cocooned, just as the woman wearing one of my dresses would be,” said Alberta Ferretti.
This was her approach in designing the new limited-edition Lancia Ypsilon Alberta Ferretti compact car, created in a special new color and with sartorial details on the seats.
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“It’s like a bustier sewn on the body,” said the designer, pointing to the fine stitchwork on the seats.
“I like the fact that a major industrial organization can personalize a car and make it unique like an atelier would,” said Ferretti, walking through Lancia’s creative studio just outside Turin’s city center.
Lodovico Colli di Felizzano/WWD
She expressed her surprise in seeing the similarities between Lancia’s studio and a fashion design office, similarly filled with mood boards, sketches and swatches of fabrics and colors.
“I imagined it to be more stern, but here they also look at people and design in function of their needs. It’s not so different from my own goal to create looks for my customers,” Ferretti said. A few of her ethereal and glimmering chiffon evening gowns and drawings were on display at Lancia’s headquarters, in color palettes reminiscent of the shade conceived for the car.
“I’ve learned a lot from this experience,” Ferretti said humbly. “I had been offered other such projects — even a gig to design a yacht — and I never accepted, but this intrigued me. I was curious about the car, which is dedicated to women. And I loved how the Lancia team was seeing my world through their eyes.”
She acknowledged she is “gratified” whenever she sees women wearing her clothes. “I take inspiration from women and modern life, I imagine how I would like to see them, and how their personality should emerge. The same happened with the car and its many details, thinking about women and their needs and aspirations.”
Luca Napolitano, Lancia brand’s chief executive officer and a member of parent company Stellantis’ top executive team, said “The Ypsilon model is most loved by women, who represent 65 percent of the total number of its customers, and the choice of color is very important to them.”
After four generations, with more than 3 million units sold since 1985, in addition to 35 special series, the Lancia Ypsilon is a leader in its segment, he explained.
Ferretti’s design, which starts at around 18,500 euros, is available in a hybrid version 1.0 FireFly 70 CV, Start&Stop Hybrid and GPL, 1.2 69 CV GPL.
The pink and gray color that was created especially for this new special series telegraphs Ferretti’s desire to represent women “with their thousand different facets, pragmatic and contemporary but also romantic and dreamers — the shade changes magically. If you see at it at sunset, it’s almost as if the light comes from inside the car,” she contended.
Indeed, thanks to a special treatment of the paint, it has an iridescent, liquid effect and the pink emerges in the bodywork. “I am very proud of the color, it’s sophisticated, delicate and classic but surprising at the same time,” Ferretti said.
Lodovico Colli di Felizzano/WWD
The car’s outside details are refined thanks to the satin chrome effect on the rearview mirrors, the grille and the door handle with the designer’s initials monogrammed via a rose gold chromed badge on the mirrors. The seats are also embroidered with a rose gold yarn and the AF monogram is in the same hue on the headrest of the seats as well as on other details in the car and the black silk dashboard.
The seat materials available include a high quality Seaqual polyester yarn, entirely recycled by the Seaqual Initiative, which works to help clean the oceans.
This attention to sustainability is shared by both Ferretti and Lancia, as Napolitano said, “We want to become the firm with the biggest percentage of recycled material.”
Asked to comment on teaming with a luxury designer, he was confident in the project’s success because of its authenticity. “It works whenever there are a common vision and future objectives. If it’s forced, it doesn’t work.”
He underscored Lancia’s heritage — also associated with “Le Dolce Vita” — and said the positioning and the design of the brand will be further raised with the appointment last year of Jean Pierre Ploué as chief design officer of the Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Citroën, DS Automobiles, Fiat Europe, Lancia, Opel, Peugeot and Vauxhall brands.
As for her own relationship with autos, Ferretti, who has owned the likes of a green and black Jaguar XK8 and a Range Rover Sport, said: “I adore driving, and when I am tired or I need to concentrate, I drive through the hills and medieval hamlets near my home and headquarters [in the Emilia Romagna region], with its incredible nature. It’s a way to relax. Sometimes I listen to music, and I personalize the car so I feel like I’m in my room looking outside. I make projects, plan things, it’s incredibly relaxing. It’s my room in the hills,” she said, smiling.
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