Useful and whimsical. Simple and theatrical. Salon and street. City and country.
It is the combination of all these elements that brings FENDI’s Fall-Winter 2024 collection to life. A sophisticated and modern quest that is built there where tradition meets subversion in the blasé British style that it shares with its Roman counterpart. The inspiration for Fendi’s FW 24-25 collection clarifies from look to look, the 1980s and British Culture influencing the silhouettes gradually. It is Kim Jones himself who recounted his creative process of this creation, born from the Maison’s archives, from which he reconstructed the year 1984. A time when the visual and cultural imaginary was dominated by the Blitz Kids, the New Romantics, the adoption of workwear, the aristocratic style, and the Japanese style that was coming into its own. Thus, from sketches in the brand’s archives to the clubs of Covent Garden, Kim Jones together with Silvia Venturini Fendi and Delfina Delettrez Fendi give the return of the 1980s decade in a collection that mixes street style and formality where the protagonist are silhouettes invaded by a careful sartorial rigor and a feminine sensibility that embraces the austerity of sinuous lines in more rounded cuts, using the graphic precision of rich, compact wools.
“I remember when I first met Silvia Venturini Fendi, she was wearing a very chic utilitarian dress, almost a Safari suit. That fundamentally shaped my vision of what FENDI is: it’s how you dress a woman who has something substantial to do. And who can have fun while doing it.”
Kim Jones’s words are indeed a projection of what she then realized within the FENDI world, this FW 24 is also one more piece in the intent to build a vision for the Italian woman’s female wardrobe, that is, to communicate that taste for the concrete and reassuring simplicity of the everyday. In Fendi’s ateliers where everything takes on the meaning of savoir faire, one perceives a deep reflection on what it means to maintain a prestigious attitude and at the same time take on a contemporary language without forgetting the past. A characteristic that automatically makes the female figures wearing these clothes, subjectivities characterized by a certain ease of dressing in which London nonchalance meets Roman freedom and utility becomes a statement of intent. Here luxury is found in the sumptuous comfort and jarring confidence that clothes and accessories give the wearer to express themselves. Practical and playful at the same time, the catwalk looks like a loop of theater stages: drape after drape stages suits with austere tailoring.
In the run-up to its centennial in 2025, FENDI’s past is made present by recurring codes and motifs that go back to the beginnings of its history: the common thread of Saddlery is found in the collection as both a clothing and leather goods motif. From its initial inspiration and creation by Roman master saddlers, Saddlery finds form this season perhaps most strikingly in the leather riding boots that dominate the collection, in the Chupa Chups® lollipop holder-which Salvador Dalí designed and now joined to the FF casing-and in the designs of Delfina Delettrez Fendi, Artistic Director of Jewelry. Here, metallic thread is sewn through leather bracelets, while its meaning is echoed in the giant leather and metal chains. The Fall 2024 Ready to Wear collection is a riot of details to notice, total looks of leather, print garments, sheer dresses, touch-of-color gloves, and free and liberating bodysuits that give breath and a sense of irregularity. What has always been hidden is now made visible, making a mockery of their dominant feature, through asymmetry. Effectively subtending a sustainable message, “you don’t need to overdo it, just reevaluate what you have.” Starring many layered wool coats tied and belted casually, borrowing the language of robes, a garment that seems to take center stage in this Fashion Week.
“The 1984 was a time when British subcultures and styles went global and absorbed influences from all over the world. But always with a British elegance in nonchalance and not caring what others think, which is in keeping with Roman style.”
Rome meets London also in knitwear, an elegant second skin layered in silk ribs or as almost homemade “interventions” using traditional British styles such as Aran and Guernsey. And then, utilitarian clothes that take on a more “sartorial” sensibility, practical and elegant at the same time, with a tough attitude contrasted by tulle and organza transparencies, printed with Roman statues or embroidered with disruptive stitches. While sheepskins and leathers stand out, showing FENDI’s craftsmanship and subverting the expectations of tradition, we see on the runway the new Simply FENDI, a soft satchel that goes with the Roll bag, a new rounded leather bag. In the bags of Silvia Venturini Fendi, Artistic Director Accessories and Menswear, styles of the past are deconstructed and revitalized, constructions softened and reconfigured. Shunning embellishments and embracing tactility and utility, sumptuous leathers in rich, natural colors dominate the new versions of the Peekaboo, Baguette, and By The Way bags.
