MILAN, Sep 30, 2004/ FW/ --- With big hair and the colors of an English garden, Alberta Ferretti’s fluid gowns and barely there dresses brought Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ to the 21st century.

Flowing color blocks shaped like flower petals, layered skirts inspired by leaves, crumpled silks in vibrant colors worn by models who floated like nymphs as they walk on the runway.

“What masque? What music? How shall we beguile the lazy time, if not with some delight?” said Theseus during the last scene of the bard’s play.

The words might have been written 400 years ago, but Theseus might have been talking to the Ferretti ladies of summer where leisure is the order of the day.

Will they be in Capri with its dramatic sunsets? They can be anywhere in the Mediterranean and they will still turn heads. In fact, it does not matter where they are.

With their embroidered and beaded tops and skirts, they can be in Los Angeles’ Sunset Boulevard flirting with some movie stars, or at dinner in a cruise ship sitting at the Captain’s table somewhere in the Pacific.

And with their big hair, they can easily be in Dallas or Houston attending those famous parties given by oil and cattle barons.

Alberta Ferretti knows how to dress her ladies very well. And to take another line from Shakespeare…

“Over hill, over dale,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere
And I serve the fairy queen.”

Alberta Ferretti

Alberta Ferretti

Alberta Ferretti

Alberta Ferretti