It’s human instinct to defend what matters in times of turmoil. One school of thought among designers is that it’s the people behind the making of beautiful clothes who deserve to be in the spotlight now. Karl Lagerfeld was speaking to exactly that point before today’s Fendi show. “I am not a prophet,” he quipped when asked the inevitable question about whether fashion should be political. “To me, this is a job, a job like any other, which I’m lucky to do. I sketch—I have the easy part, I just say, ‘I want!’ But Fendi is very well coordinated, and I must say, the cutting in the studio in Rome, the way they make the toiles is formidable.”
Lagerfeld was not in the mood for “fairy tale,” he added. Fendi for Fall was, if not exactly pared-back, certainly uncluttered by gimmicks; this was a grown-up underscoring of its innate classiness and house skills. The show opened with a gray herringbone double-breasted coat with deep mink cuffs circling bracelet-length sleeves. It was worn with a Prince of Wales bias-cut midi with a longer length than the coat, red pointy boots, and a slim “Lady” bag on a double-F logo handheld strap. From that point on, the silhouettes—knife-pleated midi skirts, the occasional tweed cuffed pant—were deployed to frame Fendi’s unique capabilities. Amanda Harlech, who had been circulating backstage, pointed out the vine-leaf motifs that appeared both printed in white on a beautiful cornflower blue silk dress and intarsia-ed into furs. They’d been inspired by a book of antique endpapers, she said.
Stamping, printing, branding: All these were subtly handled themes. The year of Fendi’s founding, 1925, appeared in Roman numerals woven into belts and cuffs; the sleek over-the-knee boots were in what Harlech called “sealing-wax red,” and the Fendi logo appeared both in its new single and throwbacks to its original interlocking double-F form. Standouts were the slick fit-and-flare black leather raincoat, super-elegantly walked by Imaan Hammam, and the surprise tucked into the intarsia fur look worn by Sohyun Jung—a ’70s vintage-y double-F logo bag printed in the colors of a stained glass window.
