Who remembers Oilily? Maybe Alberta Ferretti does, because her Spring/Summer 2014 collection could easily have been a homage to the ninties powerhouse of bijou floral prints and folklore fashion for girls. Floaty white dresses with graceful floral detailing in an orange colour scheme had a fair country maiden feel about them, which was as Pre-Raphaelite virgin as it was seventies flower child. The soundtrack was something quaint and French, which later moved on to acoustic guitar and violin, but it may as well have been Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves – that old runaway hit by Cher – because as the show progressed, Ferretti and her folkloric motifs went to South America, to Romania, Italy, Spain, and back.
While the super pretty, delicate quality of the first looks wasn’t matched by anything that followed (maybe except for the final exit, a bridal take on those very dresses), the collection developed a young, girly silhouette of longish skater skirts – some made even younger by the addition of that Oilily print – which was a breath of fresh air to the world Alberta Ferretti. And even if the last segment of evening dresses made it more mature, a translucent, flouncy, kind of Spanish red number with heavy flower embroidery was really rather wow.
