(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 28 - Virginia Woolf's Orlando parade on the catwalk that marks the debut in Parisian haute couture of the new creative director of Fendi couture and pret a porter, Kim Jones, gathering exceptional models, old and new glories among supermodels, in some cases with their progeny.
They are Kate Moss and her daughter Lila, Demi Moore, NaomiCampbell, Bella Hadid, Cara Delevingne, 1990s supermodel Christie Turlington, her nephew James Turlington, Delfina Delettrez Fendi and Leonetta Fendi, daughters of Silvia Venturini Fendi.
The show took place last night at PalaisBrongniart, with a display of mirrors and shop windows that created a sort of labyrinth-department store.
For inspiration, Kim Jones called upon a literary historian that was born in the same period as that of Fendi.
The story of the Bloomsbury literary group, in which the figures of Virginia Woolf, of her love for the writer Vita-Sackeville West and the masterpiece that Woolf wrote on her: Orlando stand out.
The starting point of the collection is the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, which inspired Orlando in 1922, only years before Fendi himself was founded.
Apparently different inspirations find space for Fendi Couture.
Femininity and male androgyny appear as fluid choices.
A love letter written by Virginia Woolf to VitaSackville-West in 1928 - only three years after the founding of Fendi - is the literary inspiration for many collection accessories: sometimes it is a metal clutch bag in the shape of bound books, other times it is a minaudières in mother of pearl, or they are high bootcuissard.
There is also an exhibition curated by Sammy Jay in which the books of Woolf and Sackeville-West are put into dialogue: Exhibition of Rare Books and Manuscripts set up in the same Palais Brongniart that hosts the show.
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