ROME (AP) — Italian designer Alberta Ferretti introduced on Tuesday she is stepping down as artistic director of the eponymous model she based greater than 40 years in the past.

“On Sept. seventeenth, you attended my final vogue present,” Ferretti wrote in a letter despatched out by e-mail.

“Sure, it’s time for me to make room for a brand new chapter for my model, a brand new narrative. It was a troublesome, difficult, however a really considerate selection,” she added.

Ferretti, 74, stated the model will proceed to bear her identify and she’s going to announce her successor quickly.

Trend group Aeffe — which owns the Alberta Ferretti model together with Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini, Moschino and Pollini — stated that Ferretti will retain her function as vice chairman of the group.

At her final present throughout Milan’s vogue week, Ferretti offered her summery creations within the courtyard of a former cloister, now a science museum, with a sublime dome rising within the background, emphasizing the artisanal heritage in her assortment.

“They’re actual summer season garments, as a result of the world in the summertime could be very heat. I do know a present is meant to be a present however actuality is necessary,’’ she stated backstage, with out hinting at her choice of stepping down quickly.

Ferretti, who grew up in her household’s dressmaking store earlier than opening her personal boutique as a young person, has remained true to her signature mild female silhouettes for the reason that launch of the model in 1981.

“The Alberta of that day is in some ways nonetheless the Alberta of at the moment, even when within the meantime a small household enterprise has develop into an organization with 1500 staff,” she wrote in her letter.