"Fashion is something serious, a means to tell ourselves and our story" says Silvia Venturini Fendi, speaking of the new collection for him and her, on the catwalk together in Milan and "conceived - she tells via zoom before the show - at a time when we were facing this new reality, a time when talking about fashion, given the drama of the moment, seemed difficult ".
She, then, preferred not to think about the clothes themselves, but about their value, starting from the beginning: "in every family a story is handed down, in mine the value of beautiful things has been handed down and for this I was inspired by tradition Italian to pass on the kit, the beautiful sheets, it comes naturally to me to pass on the clothes and nothing makes me happier than seeing one of my daughters wearing my girl clothes ".
And here this collection - visible both digitally and in physical form, but restricted to a few guests, in an all-white room with guests seated at a safe distance - is a return to the roots, from the materials, starting from linen, in the its lighter or more sustained versions, to the workmanship, "which are those that give value to Italian fashion".
And here they are, the stitches taken from the kits: the ajour, the pillow, which pass from the sheets and tablecloths to the clothes.
Again to emphasize the value of traditions, Fendi has launched the 'Hand in hand' project, entrusting 21 artisans, 1 per region, with the creation of a baguette bag, with the most disparate techniques.
On the show, the model of a craftsman from the Marche who works the willow by weaving it: "he was about to stop and today after this collaboration they returned to plant the willows and resumed production, this - Silvia Venturini says - is what fashion must return to. underline".
And to remember, like the handbag of the Abruzzo artisan with bobbin lace and put in sugar to make it stiff.
In addition to the points taken from the old kits, there are prints of shadows of nature, the same ones projected in the hall of the fashion show, as "images of the outside seen from the inside, virtual windows because the window is the symbol of the moment, it symbolizes the opening and closing to the world. Seeing things from within and from afar is a way of looking at them with more detachment and more clearly ".
The colors are simple, white above all, pure and fluid lines, with unexpected openings given by the buttons that open the back or the sleeves of the jacket.
And then the floral embroidered dressing gowns and flared tunics that have the flavor of linen handed down from mother to daughter and tell of the "desire felt in quarantine to stay with the family and tell about me".
Not surprisingly, in the invitation to the digital fashion show, some photos of the Fendi family accompany the recipe for grandma's pesto and two packs of logo-sized pasta, to tell "the story of a family business that has become a large group".
To emphasize this sense of family, the choice to send mothers and daughters, sisters, fathers and sons on the catwalk, but also historical top names like Maria Carla Boscono, Eva Herzigova, Karen Olsen alongside plus-size colleagues like Ashley Graham.
(HANDLE).