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Alessandra Rich is happy in her own little world of peculiar fashion for grown-up little girls. By jessica iredale
Do you know Hello Kitty?" ф Щ asked Alessandra Rich in Щ her lilting Italian purr to explain the title of her Щ fall collection, "(Bye Bye) Kitty," a play on the Jap_^ anese children's cartoon. "For me, it's 'Good bye, Kitty,' because I'm growing from an innocent girl to a woman."
By "I" she meant the series of made-up characters on which she bases her small, delightfully peculiar collection of mostly dresses. She has a new one every season, concocting a story line delivered in show notes that have the rare distinction of being amusing and well-written, done in the teasing tone of a Harlequin romance novel cover blurb.
Kitty's "dream is to have a dolphin in the pool and to always sleep on black silk sheets," read Rich's fall collection notes. "She wears thigh-highs, tangerine lace, fake furs and a pink topaz ring.... She has no talent, except her beauty. She is the kind of girl you mustn't get too close to or you'll risk getting burnt. She is a hot mess, but such a beautiful one."
A name is carefully chosen for each of Rich's muses. Before Kitty, there was spring 2016's Dolores, a rough but romantic runaway teen bride with cheap flowers in her hair. Spring 2015's Jessica, an Eighties baby, lounged by the pool in Southampton in her high-waisted skinny jeans, while fall 2015's Molly was from Detroit. "When she walked, she made a lot of noise," said Rich, who dressed Molly in heavy chain embroideries and gangster pinstripes. They're all strong, individual personalities with a few things in common - they're young, growing up a little too...