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Sara Battaglia on her debut ready-to-wear line

"My designs are a full expression of my feelings," says Sara Battaglia. Judging by her playful collections, we must therefore assume that the designer oozes joy, fun and glamour. As part of such a creative family – her sister Giovanna is a fashion stylist, brothers Antonio and Luigi are art dealer and designer respectively, and her parents are artists – it was no surprise when Sara launched a handbag line in 2010. In 2016 she collaborated on a collection of bags with Salvatore Ferragamo. And now this spring sees Battaglia launch her debut clothing range of chic and colourful daywear.

When did you decide you wanted to be a designer?

It was making clothes for my Barbie as a child – such a cliché, but true. I remember stealing a piece of fabric from my mother to make my first handbag when I was six. She was very upset...

You started as a handbag designer – what made you want to branch out into clothing?

It’s funny because the clothes have been in my mind since I was a child. But like other brands, such as Gucci or Louis Vuitton, that launched with shoes or bags, I wanted to start my label with accessories. Eventually, my clients started asking me when I was going to launch a ready-to-wear line, so it happened organically. It became very important for me in terms of growing my business, which is my passion.

How do your clothes and bags relate?

The two are very connected – in fact, so far, the pieces most directly related to my bags have been the most popular. The rainbow-striped leather work, or the leather flower net – where I applied techniques from my bags to clothing – have been creating the most buzz.

My bestselling bag is plissé leather, so the first ready-to-wear piece that I designed was a plissé top with a matching trouser. It was very difficult to get the technique right on the clothes because of the different scale. Translating my flower net bag into a dress took a lot of experimentation and hours at the factories to figure out how to attach one flower to another on a moving silhouette, but we got there in the end.

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