Parisian fashion designer believes linen is for real women

By Dini S. Djalal

PARIS (JP): She doesn't have a Mohawk or wear sneakers with tuxedos. Her designs aren't made of chain-mail, cowhide, or the national flag. But the elegant, petite Anne Marie Beretta keeps working in a world in love with the outlandish: fashion.

The young outsiders are getting all the publicity -- John Galliano at Christian Dior, Alexander McQueen at Givenchy, Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton -- because fashion lives on hype. But beyond the shock value fueling the paparazzi raid are the people who work hard, often without recognition, to make the clothes underneath fashion's glitter.

After 30 years in the business, Beretta is on the sober side of the catwalk. As designer for MaxMara and Marina Rinaldi, as well as her signature collection, she is not a household name but still among France's most seasoned designers.

Her career began at 17, when she worked as a stylist for Jacques Griffe. In 1958, she moved to the House of Castillo. In 1965, she juggled jobs at multiple fashion houses: Pierre d'Alby, Georges Edelman, Ramosport, Georges Kay, MacDouglas, and Bercher. In 1974, she opened her own design line. Italian fashion giant MaxMara, for which she produces two collections yearly, snatched up her talents in 1978.

Beretta's no-nonsense reputation cements the trust of the retailers. "She is the best coat designer in Paris," said the fashion insider's bible Women's Wear Daily. Beretta is not known for extravagance. Her prestige is based on her astute understanding of what women need and want to wear.

And, according to Beretta, real women want to wear linen: the easy-wash thread that weaves together her many collections. "It's the fiber of kings," this linen specialist said with a knowing smile. Beretta cuts this royal cloth indulgently, designing up to 80 percent of her summer collections in pure linen. And it's market forces, not just personal taste, that dictates her bias for linen. "If I do something in wool, my customers will ask for the same design in linen," she said.

Beretta's customers must have deep pockets. Linen is among the most expensive natural fibers -- at Rp 100,000 (US$30) per meter, pure linen is more costly than silk. Its rarity and complex methods of production are among the reasons behind its expense.

The linen plant is harvested mostly in the temperate zones of Northern Europe, particularly France. Once processed into a fiber, the linen is sent to weavers in Italy and Ireland, who then sell it to designers or produce the garments there. "France has some good weavers, but not on a mass scale. The best weavers are in Italy," said Beretta.

Indonesia

Indonesia, however, may also soon be a linen nation. Providing cheap labor and a huge market, there is now talk of setting up linen weaving and garment factories here. Masters of Linen, the association of French linen manufacturers, is stepping up promotional campaigns of their feted fabric.

The move to capture the booming Indonesian market is not only timely but commercially in sync, says Beretta. Linen's absorption of humidity is well-suited for Indonesia's tropical climate. "It's not even a question of fashion for Indonesia. It's a question of need. It's about well-being, not well-looking," said Beretta. She then recounted a story of a recent holiday in Mexico: she felt fit despite the blistering sun, while everybody else, dressed in synthetics, suffered from fatigue. "My customers are educated to like pure materials, pure clothes. Clever people wear linen," said Beretta.

The trouble is, there aren't as many of these clever people as before. Faced with an explosion of new fabrics, such as Tencel (a wood-based fabric) and Tactel, linen sales in Europe and the United States are on the way down. The fashion avant-garde -- see Helmut Lang and Prada -- are rummaging through the stables of synthetics for inspiration, sending down evening gowns in vinyl, nylon, and other fabrics previously used for industrial purposes.

Linen manufacturers are learning the hard way that the future is in the mix -- as well as in tropical Asia, where only a portion of the massive market has been tapped. The Asian market, however, still looks to Europe and America for fashion trends. Thus, linen's future is dependent on the whims of some of the world's most mercurial egos: fashion designers.

The linen experiments have a lot at stake, and they've been met with both praise and disapproval -- some designers snatch up the latest linen-with-polyester blend, others frown the move to modernize.

Beretta belongs to the latter camp, although she works closely and harmoniously with Masters of Linen. And her disdain for linen experimentations shows her love for the fabric. "There's no sense in mixing linen with synthetics, because synthetics don't absorb humidity," she said. She adds that she likes linen "for its simplicity" and that this is "spoiled when mixed with nonnatural fabrics". The only mix she likes is linen-with-Tencel, because they are both natural fibers.

Another reason why she shies away from linen mixes is price. New fabrics mean new technology, which costs. "Linen-with-viscose is more expensive than pure linen," she said, because it requires new machines and skilled workers to handle them. "Linen can easily mix with everything, but because of production costs, you have to produce big quantities to make it commercial," said Beretta.

So, despite the fabric experimentation, Beretta plans to concentrate on pure linen. "Linen is expensive, but an investment. It softens as it grows old but doesn't lose its quality," said Beretta. And she reiterates that only educated customers can judge linen's appeal. "It's not necessarily the financial elite who buy linen. In Italy, even the lowest-class people wear linen because they have been educated," she said.

The lack of linen appreciation in France, despite its monopoly on raw material production, says Beretta with atypically un- French self-criticism and stereotypically French snobbery, is due to "the bad taste of the French and the good taste of the elite."