What is your favourite item in your wardrobe?

A simple chiffon shirt, because you can wear it on any occasion and with any look.

What is your fallback outfit?

An embroidered silk dress under a heavy coat: this is the best way to face the winter season with elegance. And it works for the day or night too.

How does being a designer affect your personal style?

Being a fashion designer affects my whole life. I am always ready to evaluate the aesthetic side of everything as if it was part of me.

What do you have in mind when you are designing?

It is an automatic process. I put myself in the shoes of the woman who will wear the dress or perfume and think about how she wants to feel: beautiful, attractive and intelligent.

What is your one piece of fashion or beauty advice?

Use moisturising masks: they give the skin an intensive treatment and keep it looking soft and plumped!

What aspect of fashion do you dislike?

Wearing a dress that has nothing to do with your personality. Wearing a costume is always a fashion mistake.

How do you think people perceive you from the way you dress?

A woman like any other — with a feminine style.

If you could steal anyone’s wardrobe — past or present, fictional or reality — whose would it be and why?

I would love Elina Makropulos’ wardrobe — she is the daughter of Hieronymus. The legend narrates that she lived for 300 years and changed identities six times, always impersonating beautiful and successful women. She wore the fashions of three centuries. Can you imagine the wonders of her wardrobe?

What are your five desert island staples?

Ten books, 100 DVDs, my beauty case, my wardrobe, and most importantly a friend — I couldn’t stay on a desert island all by myself.

What is a day in the fashion life of Alberta Ferretti?

My life is very different from one day to another — there are days where fashion is present only in the dresses I wear and days where fashion consumes my every hour. Fashion is always present in my life; it affects everything.

Alberta Ferretti will be in Harrods at 12pm today, Wednesday 4 November with Claudia Schiffer meeting customers to celebrate the launch of her new fragrance

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