Fendi may not have a creative director at the moment, but it has Silvia Venturini Fendi, granddaughter of the founders, and she also worked side by side with Karl Lagerfeld for many years. The house opened in Rome in 1925, selling bags, luggage, and fur stoles. It became a powerhouse under the care of Silvia’s mother, Anna, and her charismatic aunts — Paola, Franca, Carla, Alda — and Lagerfeld entered the picture in 1966. Silvia was 6 when, dressed in an equestrian costume, she walked in Lagerfeld’s first Fendi show. Nothing in her life, or in fashion, has been the same since.
In the AI age, there are very few reminders that fashion houses were founded by families and expanded by people of vision and, in a sense, that’s what Venturini Fendi offered on Wednesday night in Milan, on the second day of the Italian fall shows, a rich yet unsentimental example of the value of familial ties and insider knowledge.
This was a brilliant show. Indeed, it had all the qualities of Italian shows of the past — scale, confidence, allure. The carpeted room — in Fendi’s Milan headquarters — was massive, with circular light fixtures lending a modernist glow, a pair of huge wooden doors that swung open from the backstage, and a cast that included newer models as well as Yasmin Le Bon, Eva Herzigova, Penelope Tree, and Carolyn Murphy.
Yet the centenary show was hardly a memory-lane trip. Whatever was personal to Venturini Fendi, whatever related to an earlier collection, was carefully considered and redefined, beginning with the opening fur coat worn with a chic thin belt. The fur was actually shearling, as were most of the coats and jackets. Long stoles, a reference to the founders, were done in mohair or shearling, and usually in a tonal blur to suggest fur. The only actual fur —“for tradition,” said Venturini Fendi in an interview — was a mink coat in a zigzag pattern.
She touched on something overlooked in recent years — that Fendi was always prolific. “Which was also very linked to the mantra of Karl,” she noted. “He would just say, ‘No, we have to move on.’ That’s something I learned from Karl — never look back, just learn from the past.” Pinned on a wall of the backstage was a geometric, multi-hued fur coat from 2000, the so-called Maximalist collection. It reminded me that Lagerfeld loved German art from the early 20th century, including posters, and that a vivid color like deep turquoise or yellow could seep into a Fendi or Lagerfeld collection. And there it was again on Wednesday, in a beautiful, almost teal blue dress in crinkly silk.
Venturini Fendi recalled, “He was flying into Rome one day, and he took Polaroids of the fields in the outskirts of Rome. When he arrived at the studio, he threw a package of Polaroids on the table and said, ‘The next collection should be about that.’” In the early ’80s, as an experiment, the Fendi ateliers had begun to shave mink, so that it resembled velvet, and Lagerfeld saw a similar effect in the fields, along with pattern and changes of texture and tone.
The new collection had a refreshing elegance without looking stuffy, and as much as I admired many of Kim Jones’s clothes — he left the company last year — they seemed, in hindsight, studied: modern, perhaps in cut but without punch and, above all, that hard-to-pinpoint Roman sense of theater. Venturini Fendi and her team got that. Among the inspiring looks were the thinly belted shearling coats; an elongated dark wool coat with a slightly flared skirt; a belted coat in tan, channel-stitched leather; and a belted light-tan shirtdress (worn by Herzigova) in what looked like papery silk or cotton, and worn with matte golden-tan boots.
LVMH is apparently looking for a new creative director, but after seeing Fendi’s full-bodied collection — glamour that strides ahead — I wondered why. I also sensed that, without trying, she tapped a Roman feeling. And at a time when much of fashion looks timidly homogeneous, that small but telling difference seems important.
Diesel was surprisingly good. And it wasn’t due to the exuberant set, the work of 7,800 fans around the world who made graffiti scribblings that were transferred to the huge, cotton-tented backdrop. Rather, it was due to the restraint of Glenn Martens, who did wonders with classic tweed and houndstooth checks, the stuff of English tailoring. The opening looks in his show were in dark wool bonded onto neoprene. But the ones that immediately followed? They were made of denim.
“I was very happy with this collection,” said a perspiring Martens backstage. He explained that the image he and his team had in mind was “Coco Chanel goes to Balmoral and gets fucked on sherry with the queen.” That accounts for the almost ladylike silhouette (not a word one usually associates with Diesel) of a long, sensible skirt and a fitted upper portion. Yet most outfits were an illusion. Coats were actually a jacket and a skirt. And there were tweedy minis hiked strangely high, and worn over tiny pants, as if someone had had too much booze. The proportions were jarring, like the makeup and the models’ black or white contact lenses, but what came across was Martens’s intentionality.
Just as innovative were dresses and puffer coats in a blistered and acid-washed denim houndstooth, and several dropped-waist party dresses — in matronly English mode — with a detailed, sheer black top and a flared satin skirt. To me, the very low-rise baggy jeans — just clinging to the hips — suggested the influence Demna’s last collection for Balenciaga, as did stiffened “tops” that appeared to be no more than crumpled pieces of papery fabric stuck to the models’ fronts. Still, the collection, especially the tweeds and the spunky play of proportions, showed great form from Martens, who is also taking over Margiela later this year.
Lucie and Luke Meier ended their seven-year run at Jil Sander with a striking collection that in its blocky lines and spiky decoration (long, needle-like paillettes in black, white, or pale pink) seemed very German to me, and I mean that fondly.
There was hardly anything not to admire in the show, in particular the hefty dark tailoring (often with a version of kilt); the consistent use of the long palettes; and a long, creamy-white silk dress adorned with flat bows. Almost everything felt like a bold statement.
Francesco Risso said his Marni was the result of some time he spent with two Nigerian artists.
“We painted together for 20 days,” he said, adding, “We said, ‘Let’s just make without commitment, without any thought of where it’s going.’” The collection had much of that spontaneous quality, with clashing colors and textures, and long, slinky dresses — the best looks of all — in four or fives different fabrics and tones.
The clothes, in a way, were a continuation of the mood of his spring collection, though without its emotional lift.
As everybody knows, Gucci is again searching for a new creative director; Sabato De Sarno left the brand earlier this month. The fall collection was done by the studio, according to a press note, and it reflected some classic Gucci shapes and, oddly, a bit of Prada’s type of styling. Above all, though, the tame collection reflected why strong creative directors matter.
