The oldest living human is 116 years old right now. The oldest living fashion brand is 136. Fendi just turned 100—putting it up there with things that have lasted the test of time.
In the past 100 years the brand has been led by the Fendi family, the inimitable Karl Lagerfeld, British designer Kim Jones, and Silvia Venturini Fendi, who has worked on menswear collections for years and only occasionally puts on her womenswear hat. She should wear that fur hat—like the ones her grandsons wore to open the show—more often.
The slightly retro clothes presented alongside Fendi’s “furs”—actually all the coats and trimmings save one are shearling, not mink—weren’t nostalgic at all. If anything, they’re the kind of proper-but-sexy garb that fashion so desperately needs right now, a smart evolution beyond the blandness of “quiet luxury” into some essentially tasteful clothing with a bit of spice. Venturini Fendi added that in the form of spangly slip dresses, furry baguette bags (the Carrie Bradshaw herself Sarah Jessica Parker was in the front row), and pleated separates with curling twisted hems. As the show ended, LVMH big boss Sidney Toledano stood up and gave Venturini Fendi two big thumbs up.
The afterparty got two big thumbs up from all my friends brave enough to stay past 10pm. Sean Paul performed. Not two songs, mind you, but a full set of at least 12 bangers. Still in the 10 minutes I joined the party before jetting back to my hotel, I saw trunks of Fendi cocktails and a man with a prosthetic leg that had been customized with hundreds of Fendi FF logos. The range of Fendi fans is broad, Jamaican reggae stars to the Italian elite to aspiring New York columnists. Safe to say the brand will last another 100 years.
