WHAT DOES THE Pope sleep on? Sounds like the start of a bad, and potentially blasphemous joke, but for home furnishing aficionados the world over, that punchline is Frette.
Alongside Madonna, Bill Gates and the Italian, French and Spanish royal families, John Paul II likes nothing better than to bed down on Frette's legendary linen. It is employed in the world's top hotels including The Ritz in Paris and The Savoy in London, on board the Orient Express and on luxury liners including the Titanic, before its watery demise.
When Hollywood's hottest duo du jour Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones, both Frette fans, were married last November at the Plaza Hotel in New York they insisted baby Dillon's crib be made up in Frette sheets.
'They called our office in New York and said that the sheets weren't adequate for the young Douglas,' regales Gianluigi Facchini, Frette's Milan-based CEO. 'Within two hours of the request, we had delivered sheets up to the suite.'
For decades, Frette has been the exclusive preserve of the monied classes and those in the know, but now the 140-year-old Italian purveyor of what many cite as the world's most luxurious linen, is doing a 'Burberry'. Just as the historic English brand brought in Rose Marie Bravo, the American buyer for Saks Fifth Avenue and Macy's, to rejuvenate the fusty raincoat brand, Frette has called in Cristina Azario, the former chief fabric designer for Donna Karan, to air its linen. 'Her input has been really strong,' says Facchini. 'She has a great eye and has made the collection more fashionable and feminine.'
Although the firm concluded its image needed a revamp, its reputation has never been a problem. Frette is renowned for intricate jacquard designs printed using a trademark 'iandanthren' process that produces solid colours which do not easily fade.