Day two at Milan Fashion Week’s AW25 womenswear edition and the crowd was still on a high from the previous night’s Dsquared2 dirty, flirty 30 celebrations, after Dean and Dan Caten enlisted Doechii and City Girl JT to tear down the house at their anniversary show. To most it seemed like we’d hit peak fashion week moment on the first night in the Italian city, but Silvia Venturini Fendi had other ideas, as the house she inherited and now steers hit triple figures and turned 100. On the off-chance you couldn’t make it to the show IRL – traffic was really terrible – here’s everything you need to know.
SEAN PAUL PERFORMED
Okay, let’s take a non-linear approach to this one and start at the end, because the biggest surprise of the night by far was when the Jamaican flag was plastered all over a video screen behind the DJ booth and SEAN PAUL STEPPED OUT ONTO THE STAGE. Flanked by two dancers in full Fendi monogrammed shorts and cropped shirts, this was not a one-and-done performance – the musician dropped banger after banger, including stuff like “Gimme The Light”, “Shake That Thing”, and “Temperature” from way back, as well as more recent collabs with Tyla and Sia. Usually there’s one actually fun fashion party a season, while the rest of them just involved standing making small talk with a semi-flat glass of champs and wishing you were in bed, but this marked the second consecutive night in a row where the fashion crowd actually got into it and let loose – helped along by potent cocktails in Fendi logo-emblazoned cocktails in little glass bottles.
…AND HE SAT FROW
As well as Sean Paul, landing in Milan to celebrate Fendi’s big birthday were Luca Guadagnino (maybe scouting costume ideas for his next film?) and Sarah Jessica Parker, who’s long been a stan of the iconic Italian house and basically helped the Baguette bag become the cultural phenomenon it now is. Her appearance at fashion week comes just a few days after Kim Cattrall showed up at Burberry’s LFW show. What’s next? Miranda at Margiela? Charlotte at Chanel? Stranger things have happened – for example, refer to our first point in this article.
AND THERE WERE LOADS OF BIG NAMES ON THE RUNWAY, TOO
Fendi girls past and present all stomped their way around the luxurious peach-carpeted catwalk throughout the show. Some, like Penelope Tree, Yasmin Le Bon, and Karen Elson had been walking since way back, and new additions came in the form of new-gen supers like the one and only Alex Consani. As fashion does a roundabout turn away from wider body representation on the runway, Silvia Venturini went against type – as she has in the past – and enlisted a handful of larger models to star in the show, among them returning Fendi girlie Paloma Elsesser.
A REAL FAMILY AFFAIR
Fendi has been passed down through five generations, so there was a whole lot to get through. Founded by Adele and Edoardo Fendi in 1925, in the audience sat two of the five sisters who subsequently took it over – Anna and Paola, while Anna’s daughter Silvia worked behind the scenes in design. Also sitting front row was jewellery designer Delfina, whose two kids Dardo and Tazio opened the show. Wearing cute replicas of the outfit Silvia wore to Karl Lagerfeld’s first Fendi show in 1966 (keeping up?), the twins flung open the massive ornate doors that backdropped the runway before zooming through the space and disappeared backstage.
A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE
When you’re looking back over 100 years, there’s always going to be a lot to get through, and there were a lot of references to the many eras of Fendi showcased across the 100 looks from the collection. Nods to the 20s came via contemporary takes on the drop-waisted silky slips popular to the time, and the 30s and 40s in neat little skirt suits with nipped-waist jackets and swishy fluted hems. The biggest influences came from the 60s and 70s, though, with the whole show soundtracked by Barry White. This meant kick-flares with slick leather car coats, chic a-line bandeau dresses in bumblebee-hues chevron stripes, a boxy leopard-printed leather jacket and matching skirt, plus lingerie-esque sheer chiffon gowns studded with crystals and strung with pom-poms that wouldn’t have looked amiss on the cast of Valley of the Dolls. Though rooted in ideas from the past, the whole thing felt fresh and easy to wear – including the wool cardigan and embellished beaded skirt combos that also appeared at Gucci and are set to be a big trend next season.
FUR ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE
Fendi started life as a furrier and the house still creates extraordinary furs for their more financially blessed customers, but this season the house really leaned into faux fur, turning out a collection heavy with oversized car coats, dainty little shawls and stoles, and all manner of trenches, blazers, and even dresses trimmed with the material. It’s a trend that’s been dominating the streets for a while now and if Milan Fashion Week so far is anything to go by, it’s going to go on a lot longer. Wherever you stand on the use of fur and faux fur, check out our recent feature in which three writers make compelling arguments for each here.
Source: Dazed Digital
