THE ELEGANCE OF PERFECTION WITH ANNE-MARIE BERETTA

There is a black and white photograph from 1976 that shows a number of rather exceptional names from French and, therefore, world fashion. If you look at them from left to right, you will see Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana, Jean-Claude de Luca, Jean-Charles de Caste bajas, then president of Shiscido Yoshio Ohno, the fashion editor Malka Trauter, the fashion designer Dan Béraveer and the super consultant Jean-Jacques Picart. At the center if this group is a tiny, bright figure wearing a white outfit and suede shoes as she smiles at the camera lens and seems to be the real focus of the shot; her name is Anne-Marie Beretta.

Back then the thirty-nine-year-old French fashion designer of Italian origin was one of the people most responsible for the real changes in the way we imagined a woman's way of dressing, the prêt-

a-porter to be worn every day that would guarantee that rare balance between practicality and authentic elegance.

And yet the 'revolutions' of Madame Beretta took place without clamor or excess, devoid of the kind of Sturm und Drang or narcissistic narratives that the other important figures in that black and white photo shared. After she arrived in Paris in 1951, the couturiers Roger Bauer and Jacques Griffe encouraged her to enter the world of fashion by designing theater costumes with Antonio Castillo. It was just the beginning of a very long career filled with crucial consulting that rewrote the lexicon of dressing and silently but radically gave the female outfit, from the 1970s to the 1980s, that sculptural image of modernity that continues to this day, not only as the inspiration for the creative directors of contemporary brands, but also in the forms designed by Madame Beretta that are still being produced. Yes, because after founding her label in 1974, the fashion designer - ---simply designed the coat most sold in the world, for Max Mara in 1981, revolutionized the raincoat, and made leather clothes 'democratic.' If today young fashion school students or just fashionistas find it 'cool' to cross the city wearing oversize coats with a geometric cut, unwittingly, they owe it all to Anne-Marie Beretta.

Q:Looking at your entire production, your creations, your collaborations, but also everything that your work has generated in images, looks, and styles, do you feel you can safely say that then leitmotif here is elegance? A concept that is perhaps impossible to define today, and yet still the term that best manifests the essence of your work. What is elegance for you?

We can give many different names to elegance. The truth of the matter is that the common thread you see in my work is simply my trade. But be careful: it is a trade that can only be carried out with passion and, how can I put it... with inner feeling. And what is good remains, but if it remains it is only because it was truly valid for this or that person who continued to wear that article of clothing.

This, in the end, is what counts.

Not too long ago, by chance, I saw a fashion show on TV that really struck me and surprised me. I told my husband: "It looks exactly like one of my Beretta collections," and in fact it was one of my shows from 1993. I figured it out only at the end of the program when a caption appeared. You know, I can't remember everything! Certain articles yes, but there were too many with respect to what is done today. Today you present twenty outfits and that's enough... We would present eighty, even more sometimes! I don't know whether this can be defined 'elegance,' but there's something magical if what I did in 1993 could be made equally well today.

Q:Do you believe that the longevity of your creations is linked to your care in constructing each single piece? After all, in your literature we often find definitions like "the architect of the

coat"...

We really do have to study what we wear, what we plan for the needs of women. And so, what's important is that every woman should find her personality in a dress. It's not just a question of starting out from my taste, because I'm not the only one who has to like the outfit. It has to represent a satisfying experience for the client, too. And yes, that sensation was truly extraordinary: seeing that the clients felt so much at ease they gave you the impression you had made that outfit for them personally. I think this is the most important thing, to be like a godmother for your clients, transform them, make them become elegant.

Q:There's the question of elegance again: today it seems difficult, even risky in fashion as well as in art to handle terms like 'elegance' or 'beauty'...

No doubt I can still talk about elegance or beauty. For me, the women I have dressed have all been appealing. That is something I have sought out in each of my creations, even in the jewelry I designed, for instance. I made things that were very special, and, as I told you, everything was done fueled by passion, even though I was also lucky enough to be able to show them all around the world.

Giving advice through one's work— this is important —about how to dress so that people will feel good. I have always said that ours is a service to people: we serve women, as well as men. This is what makes me continue to do this job with great pleasure.

Q: In your opinion, are these elements still a part of the concerns of those who do fashion today?

I wouldn't know. My instinct is to say that I don't deal with "fashion," it's fashion that deals with me! Of course, we can also talk about beauty, elegance, creation, clothes, and today's fashion. But if something is truly fashionable, it's evidently in the stores, in the streets, and above all it's wearable.

This is why I was telling you that there are sizes and shapes that are identical to clothes from the

'80s, the '90s. Clearly, there is still something contemporary about them...

Q:A crucial chapter in the story of your life is linked to your collaboration with Max Mara. According to Laura Lusuardi, the living memory of the Italian brand, you designed for the company the coat that is "the most sold, most well-known, and most copied in the world." How was coat model no. 101801 born?

It would seem to be perfect, seeing that still today not a single seam has changed! Perhaps it is that way because it is exactly how I wanted it to be. It can dress a woman who's 5'4" in the same way it can one who's 5'9" who wants to "rid herself' of her wardrobe. For me, the outfit has just one task: to protect you and let yourself exist even without it. What I mean to say is that you have to be able to forget you are wearing it. A coat that's well-tailored dresses you, it gives you character. The

women who came to me and who Max Mara had in mind were like that. I worked with them for thirty-six years, so I had a great chance to make my voice heard. In the meantime, I was also building up my brand and other licenses, I traveled a lot around Japan. Besides the Italians, I have always especially loved the Japanese because they have this polite way of accepting the fact that someone who does not belong to their culture can come along and transform womenswear and, therefore, their personality.

Q:This last point is interesting: do you think that at that time in the West there was a mistrust of women designers?

I wouldn't use the word mistrust, but the feeling is that we preferred (or perhaps we prefer) that fashion be signed by a man rather than a woman, at least this is true in the French system because, besides a few names, men designers are still predominant today. Women have had to work a lot to be noticed and to be considered great fashion designers. Personally, I never tried to be noticed in this sense. My clients were what interested me. I need to add that after working so much I couldn't wait to stop so I could devote myself to painting. For me, that was truly the most important thing. I have always painted, even before designing clothes, and I continue to do so today. Painting is

something that completely transforms the brain. When I look at someone's face now, I do so as though I were painting it. I did the same thing with fashion: you can look at a woman's body and transform it in your mind.

Q:I had never thought about this 'conceptual' component in your approach to work, which always seemed to me to be something very concrete instead...

Because that is indeed how it is. I really care for the materiality of my work, even when I'm dealing with painting. When you're dealing with clothing you need to think about something permanent, especially today when it costs too much. So for the fabric and the way the article of clothing is made... quality is essential.

I've always been attracted to fabric because there's something physical, sensual in it. I did a lot of work with and am still enthralled by the quality of material like cold wool, which is seldom used, but has great material qualities, and a way of resisting and aging with the person who wears it that I find extremely fascinating.

A good fabric is sort of like the skin of a growing child, and when you wear a fabric it will bestow on you a way of being, of living, and of moving in a certain way. Clothing adapts the way your skin does, there is no need to undervalue this aspect. Just as you must not look at an article of clothing as though it were a toy. It is not a toy. It is something that is very important, even if it is a raincoat, it is no small thing. This is why I was saying that seeing how expensive fashion is today, once you've bought that piece of clothing it has to give you something in return.

Q:In 1965, for instance, you presented a collection with every article in extremely sophisticated brown linen, and yet the same feeling of something precious transpires in your work on rainwear that today we might classify in that intersection between prêt-à-porter and sportswear that didn't exist at the time...

I believe that all these things were born from a need for transformation, in other words, they weren't

"calculated." I can't say now what pushed me on that occasion to use this or that color, but I am sure that just like when I paint the choice of color stems from deep inner feelings.

As for sportswear, I was probably influenced by my adoptive father's activity: he had brought the first sportswear store to Béziets. When I left the city for Paris at the age of twenty, my desire was to dress women with no real differences with respect to menswear. After all, it was already a world where women had the same practical and work-related needs. They needed a trenchsoat, a coat that, as we were saying, anyone could wear, and the raincoat as well was conceived as being something extremely practical. It's terrible to have to go outside even when the weather is bad! That's why I chose to focus on outerwear that was suited to everyone.

Q:Recently, I was rather struck by a rerun on Télevision Française 1 on the occasion of the 1976 international women's prêt-a-porter fair, with a joyful presentation of trends in fashion having to do with the theme of transportation. The program is filmed in an airport and there's an

interview with you where you talk about tovelveer Beyond the beautiful images, which today we look at nostalgically, I find the concept of thinking about clothes that are functional to transportation to be intriguing...

You see, today it's normal for anyone to take a plane or any other means of transportation, but in those years the phenomenon of mobility, travel, was entirely new, and this required imagining clothes that were suited and that would not simply give in to "convenience" in aesthetic terms. I have never thought, in designing them, about a woman who is out of the ordinary, like an actress or a star, but rather about a woman who works, who moves, but also loves to be alluring. To me this is important, because if there is no desire to seduce, then there can't be any desire to change what you

wear.

Q: In your opinion, during the 1980s how were the Paris, Milan, London, and New York scenes related?

I never paid much attention to what was happening elsewhere, but I think that for various reasons none of us were paying much attention to what was happening in the other fashion capitals of the world. Except for New York, which copied Paris a lot. The other places, at least apparently, seemed to ignore each other.

Q:Do you attribute a negative meaning to the copy?

It's not much a part of my personality. I have the impression that when you look at other people's work too much, you automatically end up with a copy, and it's something I abhor. One thing is inspiration, which is fine, and completely normal. But copying obliterates the creative process.

There are timeless outfits that still exist today, but there are people who look at those models as though they were two-dimensional photographs on their desks, and more than interpreting them they simply imitate them, without understanding them. When you are truly a creator, you don't work based on what you see, but on what you are over time. Because time changes, the needs and wants of the clients change, and that is where you need to think things through.

Q: Do you look at what is presented today during fashion week, at how the narratives and the languages of fashion have evolved?

Not exactly. It's a way of seeing fashion with a sensitivity that's very different from mine. But I can say that I look at newspapers and magazines a lot, not so much to see the shows, the collections, but to see what I'm really interested in: especially the photography. I see photographers with amazing talent. That's where I can still see true genius.