WHERE TO SHOP ITALIAN DESIGNER FASHION IN SYDNEY
Where to Shop Italian Designer Fashion in Sydney
A guide to the Italian labels defining considered dressing this season, and where to find them in Sydney.
Italian fashion has always sat apart, built less on trend than on fabric, construction and a certain ease that comes from generations of craftsmanship. Whether it is a hand-finished silk print, a piece of vegetable-tanned leather, or a knit spun in a small family mill, the labels coming out of Italy tend to reward a closer look. At Riada Concept in Woollahra, Sydney, a considered edit of Italian designers sits alongside the rest of the collection, each chosen for the same reason: quality that holds up to scrutiny, not just a season.
Pierre-Louis Mascia
Pierre-Louis Mascia is known for exactly this kind of close-look reward. Each piece begins as a hand-painted or photographic print, developed in the brand's own Italian ateliers before being placed onto silk, often with as much attention paid to how a pattern meets a seam as to the print itself. Jackets, trousers and skirts are usually cut to let the print carry the silhouette, so a single co-ord reads as considered rather than busy.
Massimo Alba
Massimo Alba takes a quieter approach, built on soft, unstructured tailoring in linen, cotton and cashmere. Founded on the island of Panarea, the label's ease comes from its Mediterranean roots: blazers that are cut to move rather than hold a shape, trousers with enough drape to wear from morning through evening. It is the kind of Italian design that favours comfort over formality without losing any of the polish.
Sara Roka
Sara Roka has built a name around a single, well-executed idea: the printed cotton shirt dress, done in bold, painterly florals and graphic prints, each finished with a fitted bodice and a full, considered skirt. It is the label that proves a single dress can carry an entire outfit, from a summer lunch to an evening event, with nothing more added than the right pair of sandals.
Avant Toi
Avant Toi is Italian knitwear at its most artisanal, each piece hand-dyed, distressed or overdyed to create tonal, one-of-a-kind colourways that no two garments quite share. The techniques are painstaking and largely done by hand in small ateliers, which is precisely why the finished knitwear looks nothing like anything produced at scale.
Henry Beguelin
Henry Beguelin is a study in leather as material rather than accessory. Bags, sandals and belts are made using vegetable-tanned and hand-worked leathers, often stitched, woven or patchworked by hand, so that texture and imperfection are treated as the point rather than something to be polished away. Every piece is designed to develop character with wear rather than lose it.
Alberta Ferretti & Plan C
At the more directional end of the edit, Alberta Ferretti brings a refined, romantic point of view built on lace, chiffon and considered tailoring, while Plan C, founded by Carolina Castiglioni, offers a more graphic, artful take on Italian ready-to-wear, with bold colour, illustrated prints and playful accessories. Together they represent two very different, equally Italian, ways of getting dressed.
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