Kim Jones again brings it for the Fendi RTW Fall 2023 Runway Report. We are not afraid to say we love fur, and Kim Jones is determined with all the riches at his disposal with the latest Fendi collection. The staggering archive is documenting 54 years of fur by utilizing all of the atelier’s assets, from ready-to-wear designed by the late great Karl Lagerfeld and a clutch of stylish women from the founding, aristocratic Roman family.
Fendi RTW Fall 2023
Delfina Delettrez Fendi is perhaps the chicest of them all, having access to the wardrobe of her stylish mother, Silvia Venturini Fendi, and mixing everything with insouciance. (Incidentally, she was among “professionals” named to Vanity Fair’s International Best Dressed List in 2016.)
Jones vividly remembers the brown and pale blue outfit Delettrez Fendi wore the day he started at Fendi, which she told him she sourced from a shop in Rome that stocks clothes for nuns. The British designer reprised that colour combo for Fendi’s fall collection, in which a punk spirit added an off-kilter zing to tony Italian chic.
“She’s a sophisticated working mother that lives her life and enjoys life,” Jones said of Delettrez Fendi, but he could have also been describing the Fendi customer. “I love her, and she inspires me,” he added.
Again, he could have been talking about the customer: The designer pays attention to what’s selling, so he focused on those three categories — knitwear, dresses and tailoring — sticking to long, slender silhouettes disrupted with asymmetric cutting, some slashes and harness-like straps there. Since he took the helm of the house, celebs and wealthy clients have rocked the Fendi logo again.
Runway Report
Colour-blocked intarsia knits, which Jones occasionally added coiling rows of snap closures, were interpreted from two Lagerfeld collections from 1981 and 1996.
Jones also drew several themes from his spring 2023 haute couture collection for Fendi, including the body-skimming shapes, lingerie elements, and fluttering capes, which are tacked to the shoulders of the shoulders black satin gowns with scooped necklines and draped fronts.
He reprised his cashmere couture coats lined with shimmering sequins. Of course, you can knock a few zeros off the price for the RTW versions, but they were equally alluring. All his slim coats were strong statement makers, whether in caramel-coloured Persian lamb, off-white shearling or grey flannel. The set was as minimal as the clothes: a tunnel of light reminiscent of a mesmerizing John Galliano show in 2009.
As usual, the collection was a team effort. First, Venturini Fendi, artistic director of accessories and menswear collections, debuted the new shape-shifting Multi bag, which transforms from a bucket shape to a shopper tote thanks to a system of magnets.
Meanwhile, Delettrez Fendi, as creative jewellery director, interpreted the double-F logo, which Lagerfeld had sketched back in 1967, as a metallic object that locks on the ear.
What do you think of the collection? Cop or not?
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