With any milestone anniversary comes a great deal of reflection. For Kim Jones, the Artistic Director of Couture and Womenswear, this meant seeking inspiration where it started—or rather, when it started. For the Fendi SS25 runway, the Italian Maison celebrates its centenary with an homage to the attitudes and style codes of women in the 1920s, who first spurred founders Edoardo Fendi and Adele Casagrande to create what we know today as the House of Fendi.
“The foundations of how women dress today and, in many ways, how we think are in the 1920s. It’s about modernity in style and attitude,” said Jones of his interpretation of the era. “1925 has so many milestone moments. It is the founding year of Fendi, but also the year of the Art Deco exhibition in Paris—The International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts—from where the name is taken. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby are also published.”
While the 20s is an era often turned to for inspiration in fashion, Jones’ take is exceptionally beautiful. From glamorous occasionwear like flapper-style dresses and gowns to everyday tunics, outerwear and coordinating sets, the roaring decade’s influence gets couture-level treatment this season. As a core part of Fendi’s métier, fabrication never fails to evoke wide eyes and gasps, and for this collection, even moodier tones and thicker materials moved with the same lightness and fluidity of the silk slips and organza coveralls. Elsewhere, soft suedes and shearlings enveloped the wearer in robes nipped by waist ties, while the finest suede croco featured in T-shirt silhouettes. Across the SS25 collection, a balance of contemporary needs and old-world allure reaches a compelling equilibrium in Jones’ masterful amalgam.
“There’s modernism in dress, design, decoration and thought,” he wrote in his shownotes. “We approached the collection with these things in mind, as an amalgam of epochs, moods and techniques—then and now.”
Of course, this is Fendi, and the accessories are a main event of any show. On this front, materials, embroideries and relaxed structures offered an effortless feel to bags—the kind of sophisticated ease that only supreme craftsmanship can achieve. The Mamma Baguette, in particular, is back, only taller, wider and bigger than its standard incarnation, as a tribute to Adele Fendi, founder of the house and Silvia Venturini Fendi’s grandmother.
“Quality is the number one point besides the beauty of design,” wrote Silvia Venturini Fendi, Artistic Director of Accessories and Menswear of the collection. “I am always thinking about the connection between fashion and time—I think quality is the defining feature. It is the timeless testament to what has been achieved in our hundred-year history. As the founder of FENDI, it was also my grandmother Adele’s obsession, both personally and professionally: quality.”
And between the family’s enduring reverence for traditional craftsmanship and Jones’ visionary talent at the helm, this passion for quality is certainly upheld. Happy birthday, Fendi!
This article originally appeared on GRAZIA International.
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