A member of the founding family, he spearheaded the growth of the brand and developed it internationally.

MILAN — Alberto Masotti, the former owner and president of La Perla, died on Friday morning in Bologna. He was 90.

Masotti stepped down from his position at La Perla in 2007 with the arrival of San Francisco-based private equity firm JH Partners, which took full control of the group in 2008.

“With Alberto Masotti, La Perla loses the man who took his mother’s Bologna atelier to the world without ever taking it away from Bologna,” said Alessio Vannetti, chief executive officer of the innerwear brand since Sept. 1. “What he built lives on every day in the hands of our artisans and we feel the full responsibility of carrying it forward with the same care. Our thoughts are with Anna and the entire Masotti family.”

Vannetti, a former Gucci and Valentino executive, joined La Perla’s new owners Peter and Kristen Kern, who last year, through the Luxury Holdings LLC, acquired La Perla. The business had been declared insolvent after changing hands for years. After the Masotti family sold it JH Partners, Silvio Scaglia bought the business in 2013 and finally it was sold in 2018 to Tennor, then called Sapinda.

Kern rehired La Perla’s 220 seamstresses with the goal to keep manufacturing the brand in Italy, mainly in the Bologna headquarters.

The brand was founded in 1954 by Ada Masotti, Alberto’s mother. Before the sale to JH Partners, his daughter Anna was design coordinator for the brand, while the ready-to-wear line shown on the runway during Milan Fashion Week was designed by Alessandro Dell’Acqua, a contract that expired with the spring 2009 season.

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