Kim Jones has been thinking a lot about Y2K of late. Sure, nostalgia for the era has lingered in the air for a few seasons now, but something about the period between the late-90s to early-00s remains at the forefront of many designers’ minds — and not just because they’ve been spending time on TikTok. Perhaps it’s because it was the time when fashion really got fun, experimenting with unexpected high-low pairings; the time when is first started dipping its toe into typically lowbrow popular culture, and riffing on the nascent optimism of the early days of the Internet, which allowed us to log on and disappear into a fantasy universe of chatrooms and video games.
For Kim, however, the period was when he first got his start in fashion. Back then, he was a young menswear designer in London, experimenting with hybridising streetwear and luxury staples, and decoding the tribal subcultures of London’s halcyon days. Now look at him! He’s the creative director of Fendi and Dior, two of the most monolithic fashion houses in the world.
You can see why Kim would be feeling sentimental for a simpler time, given the scale at which he works and how much he produces. Following his spectacular outing for Fendi in New York — a giant, glittering celebration of 25 years of the Baguette bag, first designed in 1997 by Silvia Venturini Fendi — it was only inevitable that this show would be more pared-back, perhaps more focused on the core codes of the house, following all those blockbuster collaborations and single-moniker supermodels. For Kim, the foundations he looked upon were laid down in the years between 1996 and 2004, a time when the late Karl Lagerfeld was making some of his most contemporary-minded collections for Fendi.
According to Kim, his decision to delve into the era is less about jumping on a bandwagon and more about channeling what he sees right in front of him: the fourth-generation Fendi daughter, Delfina Delettrez, borrowing from her mother Silvia’s wardrobe and wearing those clothes around the studio (she designs jewellery for Fendi). “I am interested in looking at things that Karl has done, and seeing how we can develop them – both visually and technically,” Kim explained after the show. “It still feels fresh and modern.”
Just look at the slouchy, silky cargo pants, complete with Fendi -monogrammed buckles on pockets, or the elongated racerback tank tops, worn with diaphonous trousers and chunky mink-trimmed rubber flatforms. Something about them feels contemporary, much more relatable than, say, sky-high stilettos and microscopic skirts — even though the latter was a hallmark of the Y2K. You can imagine women actually wearing these clothes, whether it’s girls begging their mothers to buy them those chunky boots or novelty handbags, or an older generation of women reliving their younger years in sinuous, slinky silk dresses.
Most of all, the collection was a play on colour. Fendi’s typically neutral colour palette and double-F monogram — the milky beiges, chocolate browns, leathery caramels — actually come courtesy of the house’s beginnings as a fur and leather manufacturer in the 1920s. Natural fibres, whether it’s cashmeres or furs, tend to veer on the side of classically good-taste browns and beiges.
But Y2K is anything but that! Which is why, Kim wanted to liven up the tan leathers and camel-coloured staples with a distinctive trifecta of cornflower blue, bubblegum pink, and peppermint green. The three colours — which, to be honest, brought to mind the Powerpuff Girls; very 2000s Nickelodeon — formed the three chapters of the collection, mixed in with a handful of those house neutrals. They coloured everything from silky tailoring with origami-like satin obi belts, to waffle-knit sweaters that were actually crafted from mink, to the jingling variety of minuscule Peekaboo bags worn as pendants, among lashings of other logomania bags of every shape and size. Fun, right? Kim knows that’s exactly what Y2K girls want.
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Images via Spotlight