Who Is Alessandra Rich? The Designer Behind the Polka Dot Dress

Alessandra Rich founded her namesake label in 2010. She runs it from offices in London and Milan, and the collections are made entirely in Italy. In the years since, she has built one of the most recognisable visual signatures in occasion dressing, largely on the back of a print most designers treat as a novelty.

The house in one line

Rich describes the work as playful innocence set against something more subversive. In practice that means silk crêpe de chine covered in dots, tweed bouclé finished with crystal and gold-tone buttons, a waist that is always defined and a shoulder with structure in it. The references sit somewhere between the 1960s and the 1980s without landing on either.

What makes the label unusual is how little it moves. Most houses reinvent every few seasons. Rich has kept the same vocabulary since the start, which is why a polka-dot midi bought three years ago still reads as current. That consistency is the commercial argument as much as the aesthetic one.

The polka dot, and the Princess of Wales

The dot is the piece of the house most people can picture, and that is not an accident of design so much as an accident of visibility. The Princess of Wales has worn Alessandra Rich polka dots repeatedly: for King Charles’s seventieth birthday portrait in 2018, in a custom azure version for the Platinum Jubilee in 2022, and in black and white for the VE Day thanksgiving service in 2025.

Rich has said Princess Diana was a muse for the print, noting that she wore polka dots well. That lineage does quiet work every time the dress appears. It also explains why the label sells out of dotted silk faster than anything else in the collection.

What Alessandra Rich actually makes

The bulk of it is eveningwear: silk midi dresses, slip dresses, lace and sequin-embroidered pieces cut close through the body. Alongside that sits a daytime wardrobe that gets less attention and deserves more. Tweed jackets and skirts, merino knitwear, tailored separates in Prince of Wales check.

Fabrics are the giveaway on quality. Silk crêpe de chine and silk taffeta dominate the dresses. The tweeds are bouclé, usually with a sequin thread run through them. Linings are silk more often than not, which is unusual at this price and is the reason the dresses hang the way they do.

Sizing and fit

The house cuts to Italian sizing, so an IT 40 is a UK 8. Coveti converts every size to the UK ladder before it reaches the product page, so you can order your usual UK size. The cut runs true with a close line through the waist. If you are between sizes and want ease across the bust, take the larger one.

Where to buy Alessandra Rich

Coveti carries the ready-to-wear across evening and daytime, from roughly $1,000 into the mid $6,000s. Every piece is authenticated before dispatch and ships worldwide, with duties calculated at checkout. Browse the full Alessandra Rich collection, and start with the designer dresses if you are shopping for an occasion.

If you are weighing the label against its peers, read brands like Alessandra Rich. For the dots specifically, we wrote a guide on how to style an Alessandra Rich polka dot dress.