Kim Jones is Fendi's new co-creative director

This morning the LVMH group announced that Kim Jones, the current head designer of Dior Homme, will be the new creative director of Fendi's women's collections. Jones will join the artistic direction of the historic Roman brand Silvia Venturini Fendi – who will instead remain in charge of the design of accessories and men's collections. The position now occupied by Jones is actually very delicate as well as coveted, as this appointment makes him the direct heir to Karl Lagerfeld, former artistic director of Fendi's women's collections – a vacancy that had never been officially assigned to anyone after the designer's death last year and that had made Silvia Venturini Fendi the main creative figure of the brand.

This appointment also represents Jones' debut in the field of womenswear – an industry that is for Fendi has always been a field of excellence. Bernard Arnault, CEO of the LVMH Group, commented:

«Kim Jones is a great talent and since joining, he has continuously proven his ability to adapt to the codes and heritage of the LVMH houses while revisiting them with great modernity and audacity At Fendi, I am convinced that his vision and passion will highly contribute to the success of the women’s collections».

Words that suggest that the board of LVMH wants to bring Jones' approach (an approach that has multiplied the revenues of Louis Vuitton and Dior in the past) also to the womanswear of Fendi – an industry of the brand that, after 54 years of tenure Lagerfeld, needs not only to be directed independently but also to have at its helm a designer of great cultural importance as is Jones.

The appointment of KIm Jones also provides insight into LVMH's global strategy, which, following Dior's extraordinary success, aims to grow all of its brands towards a standard annual revenue of two billion dollars per year – Dior's current revenue. This intention was already behind the appointment of Matthew Williams as creative director of Givenchy and it certainly has to do (beyond the cultural significance that Fendi's position as a womanswear designer has in the industry) with the assignment to Jones of the post for Fendi.