On the eve of its 100th anniversary, Fendi is “molto moderna”

Attention, there is a change at Milan Fashion Week, which starts this season, a day earlier. Namely on Tuesday, with the opening, the Fendi show organized, not in its traditional teatro on Via Solari, but in a hangar far from the city. As if the house was afraid of becoming bourgeois on the eve of its century of existence. This Roman house founded in 1925 and “carried” by several generations of visionary and iconoclastic women as evidenced by the soundtrack of the show (designed by the essential Max Richter).Una donna molto moderna per i suoi tempi. Molto, molto, molto moderna. With a very precise taste.” («A very modern woman for her time. Very, very, very modern. With a very precise taste.», in the French version) says in a recording the deep and racy voice of Anna Fendi to her daughter Silvia Venturini Fendi, today artistic director of accessories and the men’s line. A phrase that the latter could just as well say to her daughter, Delfina Delettrez Fendi, in charge of the house’s jewelry…

In this eminently feminine equation, there have always been men: Edoardo, the patriarch and co-founder; Karl Lagerfeld, who designed the collections for 54 years; and today, the British Kim Jones, author of this very beautiful fashion show for summer 2025.This collection will be the first in stores for the centenaryhe explains backstage a few minutes before the show. So I wanted to transpose 1925 into 2025, to modify the proportions of a Mrs Dalloway flapper dress so that it could be worn like a modern T-shirt. From the 1920s, what interests me is the modernist writing of the Art Deco movement. And then, of course, the Fendi family. I was inspired by each of its women, Adele, the founder, and Anna, Silvia, Delfina, Leonetta (Silvia’s youngest daughter, Editor’s note)… Some looks are direct references to their ways of dressing, of appropriating clothing. 1925 is also a pivotal date for women’s emancipation movements around the world. My only goal is to celebrate women, through those in the family, because they are strong, because they created this gigantic empire. They are extraordinary people.. »

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As the voices of mother and daughter continue (paying homage to the first in the line, Adele, who “had the courage to open his own business, a beautiful shop just off Piazza Venezia and this other little one on Via del Plebiscito in Rome“), the cast of bare-faced models, barely coiffed hair and haughty bearing, advance in gauze dresses embroidered with Art Deco micropearls. On their feet, boys’ boots created in collaboration with the Canadian construction shoe manufacturer Red Wing. The fabrics are light and often transparent. The flowers and arabesques of sequins would almost make us forget Fendi’s historic profession, furrier, if there were not, all the same, a brown sheared mink and a pearl gray sheepskin dressing gown coat, Anna’s favorite.

The leatherwork is also remarkable. Small, impeccably tailored overcoats warm up beige knit polo shirts and shorts. The iconic Baguette bag invented by Silvia in 1997, takes on the air of a cushion that is as soft as it is luxurious, in leather, python, mille-feuille mesh…In my opinion, Kim Jones continues, London is menswear, Paris is couture and Milan is ready-to-wear. I work in all these cities and they all bring me different ideas and inspirations. But when I’m in Rome, it’s something else, a city apart, populated by such elegant people.» And Fendi has had a lot to do with it for 100 years…