Editor's Note:
What does it mean to leave the security of a top fashion house for a form of creative freedom that offers no certainty? In this first-person essay, Italian dressmaker Anna Renzi Brivio reflects on that question. After several years at Dolce&Gabbana, four of them in the Alta Moda department, she returned to her hometown of Brescia and, in 2025, established her own Sartoria inside a seventeenth-century former church. Rather than telling the story as one of triumph, she records the fear and insomnia of leaving, the daily realities of running a workshop, and why she insists on putting time, hands and the person who will wear the garment back at the centre of making.
Words: Anna Renzi Brivio · Brescia, Italy
Edit: Agnes Select
Leaving Alta Moda was terrible. I think it was the most difficult decision of my life because I was leaving the life I had always wanted. I worked for a major fashion house, I lived in Milan, and I had my own home and independence. I had achieved what I had worked towards for years, and I was happy. There was nothing I needed to escape from; I had to separate myself from something I loved.
There was no particular garment, conflict or frustration that made me decide. I worked with very stimulating people and the environment influenced me positively. It gave me knowledge, discipline and confidence. The need to leave came from me, not from what surrounded me.
It was a gradual process that became more evident during my final year, when I began suffering from insomnia. I would leave work and often feel that my mind was empty. For someone else, that lightness might have been a privilege. But I need to think, to have problems to solve and something that helps me grow; I need a destination I have not yet reached. During the pandemic, I began working on a few personal projects. Until then, I had never looked for another path. I was exactly where I had always wanted to be. Working on something of my own, however, allowed me to experience a creative freedom that I could no longer ignore. I wanted to follow an idea from beginning to end and be responsible for every decision.
I was very afraid. The company had become a family to me, and leaving also meant giving up the personal independence I had achieved. I left my home, my routines and the security of the life I had built to pursue a form of creative freedom that offered no certainty. I do not think of myself as someone without fear. I tried not to stop and think for too long because, if I had, I probably would never have left.
Making in a Sacred Space
Brescia, however, was not the city I had imagined returning to. I did not want to come back, and I am not ashamed to say so. My life was in Milan. I still miss Milan and I hope that one day I may live there again while keeping the Sartoria in Brescia. Returning to Brescia was also a practical decision. It allowed me to rely on my family and concentrate my resources on the work. I had no one depending on me and I was in a position to begin again. I know that having this possibility is not something to take for granted.
Finding the right space was difficult. A small shop is not enough for this kind of work. I needed rooms large enough for worktables and patterns, but also somewhere a client could feel properly welcomed. It had to be a workshop, a place for fittings and somewhere I wanted to spend my days. I had almost lost hope of finding a space that could hold all of these things. Then I entered the church. The feeling was immediate and much stronger than any rational thought. I did not simply think that it was beautiful or suitable; I felt that it belonged to me and, at the same moment, that I belonged to it. I like to say that my church and I fell in love, because that is what happened. We found each other.
