Fendi's fall show was all about 1984: not George Orwell's dystopian novel, but the Roman house's archives from that year, and a fertile period in London, when Leigh Bowery was queen of the club scene , Princess Julia was the first lady of covers, and Amanda Harlech wrapped sweaters over whatever she was wearing when she left the dance floor at Taboo and slept in John Galliano's studio.
Kim Jones recorded the period lightly, snatching some of its fashion meanings (workwear, Blitz kids, Japanese style) that Karl Lagerfeld had also absorbed and expressed when he ran the Roman house.
“They really reminded me a lot of New Romantic clothing,” Jones enthused about her archival discovery in a backstage interview.
Here they were designed in the elegant, stealthy and luxurious style of today's Fendi, resulting in a soft and confident collection, which stands out for its sophisticated and sober colors; elegant, waist-hugging tailoring, and tall, tubular boots that looked like a sure hit.
Jones divided the theater of Fendi's extra-long catwalk into a series of intimate rooms separated by curtains, which concealed the efforts of a pair of PETA protesters from the majority of the audience, and which seemed to heighten the quiet drama of the sumptuous but light sheepskin garments. .
Jones noticed that most of today's models don't use fur, so he let Fendi's fur specialists run wild with sheepskins and leather, producing unique textures: here shiny and crackled; punched and flexible there. He snuck in a mink coat, but it had been shaved to look like fine corduroy.
The designer softened the hard edges that sometimes creep into Fendi collections, and his sweater fragments, often just turtlenecks and sleeves, looked comfortable over crisp white shirts or shapely pantsuits.
Silvia Venturini Fendi, artistic director of menswear and accessories, contributed soft versions of the house's Peekaboo bag and introduced a soft bag called Simply Fendi.
Jones, a British designer who is always dazzled by the utilitarian style of Venturini Fendi and her daughter Delfina Delettrez Fendi, whom she calls “the most chic woman in Rome,” seemed to be on solid ground mixing London eccentricity with Italian sophistication.
For example, she abstracted the heroic sentiment of New Romantic clothing and expressed it in Fendi's way: by printing or embroidering Roman statues that the brand had helped restore onto some of its final chiffon dresses.
There was even a handbag charm for lathering TikTokers: a Chupa Chups lollipop holder made from Selleria leather. The price is yet to be determined.
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