Kim Jones, Artistic Director of FENDI Haute Couture and Womenswear, says that the foundations of women’s fashion today, and in many cases our way of thinking, were forged in the 1920s. ‘It’s modernity at its best, both in style and attitude,’ says Jones, referring to one of the most formative decades of the 20th century. 1925 is crucial, the designer points out: the year FENDI was born, but also the year of the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, from which the term Art Deco emerged.
In the same year, books such as Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby were published, reflecting a zeitgeist of modernism that permeated clothing, design, decoration and thought. FENDI’s new collection, Jones notes, is born out of that amalgam of eras and moods, fusing yesterday and today through techniques that are both contemporary and classic.
FENDI’s centenary is the perfect occasion to celebrate the fusion of the everyday and the extraordinary. The collection explores the crossover between ready-to-wear and Haute Couture, between handmade and machine-made fashion, between day and night, to pay homage to a century of innovation and celebration of what it means to be a woman.
FENDI, a house handed down from generation to generation through a matriarchal line, has always been conscious of the women who make, not just the women who are. This collection is an invitation to experience contemporary life with lightness, movement and comfort, an ode to the excellence of the everyday.
The fusion between the structured and the unstructured defines the new proposal. The meticulously detailed and handmade embroideries are light and are applied to garments as simple and elegant as silk or organza T-shirts and briefs. The softness of suedes and bordure are transformed into fluid shapes, while the finest crocodile is presented in silhouettes as unexpected as those of a T-shirt.
The contrast between the ordinary and the extraordinary is reflected in silk tea dresses and ethereal ballerinas, anchored to the floor with Red Wing boots, a classic menswear staple of the brand since 1952, now fused with FENDI’s artisanal techniques, such as the Cuoio Romano colour palette and Selleria hand-stitching.
The bags, as iconic as the house itself, are also part of this mix of materials, embroidery and fluid structures. The Mamma Baguette, reinterpreted in a larger, taller and wider version than ever before, becomes a tribute to Adele Fendi, the founder of the house and grandmother of Silvia Venturini Fendi.
In parallel, the FENDI Filo jewellery design, created by Delfina Delettrez Fendi, is another example of how history and modernity intertwine. The Filo is an evolution of the Selleria, a legacy of craftsmanship that has endured over the years, and whose design is a reflection of a family tradition and a commitment to quality that transcends time.
‘For us, quality always comes first, beyond the beauty of the design,’ explains Silvia Venturini Fendi, Artistic Director of Accessories and Men’s Fashion. “I always think about the connection between fashion and time, because quality is what lasts. It is the eternal testimony of what we have achieved in these hundred years. And that obsession with quality was also, both personally and professionally, my grandmother Adele’s obsession.”
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