Fendi pre-celebrates its 50th anniversary with its SS25 collection

Milan Fashion Week kicked off this Tuesday, September 17, in the best way possible, with the show of an iconic fashion house that has contributed to Italian fashion history for centuries: Fendi. Apart from presenting the SS25 collection, the show also served as a celebration of the 100 years of the brand and of the woman behind it, Adele Casagrande. As a tribute to Fendi's roots and its original aesthetic, the looks presented were inspired by the Roaring Twenties, yet designed and created with a modern and contemporary twist. To achieve this, Kim Jones, the current artistic director of the women’s collection, called upon those best placed to talk about the House: four generations of women from the Roman clan who all contributed to building the empire that the brand is today. The soundtrack wasn't just any music, no repetitive techno sound or old romantic songs, but a recording of Silvia Venturini Fendi (head of creative direction for Fendi’s Men's, Accessories, and Kids collections, and the only member of the Fendi family still working at the House), chatting with her mother Anna Fendi about the family House and fashion more broadly.

The show begins and ends with a series of low-waist straight dresses that reach mid-calf, decorated with pearls, Art Deco motifs, and floral embroidery. Dresses that would have perfectly blended into the setting of a grand Gatsby-style ball but were designed with a modern 90s twist. After these initial pieces and before their return for the grand finale, the show leaves the Roaring Twenties making a leap to the present, with pieces ranging from suede t-shirts, modern office-core shirts with cinched waists, a shearling robe jacket, to a very modern mini-short paired with a champagne yellow cardigan. All accompanied by shoes created in collaboration with American bootmaker Red Wing, contrasting with the transparent floral socks they were worn with. This shift in direction is not due to Kim Jones’ indecision, but rather a brilliant way to interpret the paradoxical essence of fashion. The shapes are nuanced, transparent fabrics are overused, and the Fendi woman is celebrated. With this collection, Kim Jones did not just bring the original Fendi back to life, he managed to honour all its versions and iterations, renewed, rethought, and reimagined over an entire century.

Although it all began in the heart of a modest workshop on Via Plebiscito, Fendi is now considered a true luxury flagship, known and recognised internationally for its artistic and artisanal productions. In 1925, Adele Casagrande and Eduardo Fendi embarked on a business in high-quality fur and leather goods, but the beauty of Fendi does not only lie in the nobility of the materials used and the way they are handled, it resides in the family spirit that is carefully integrated into every piece created by the House. Indeed, it was after the war, once the five daughters of the Fendi family began working there, that the success of the brand truly took off. Decades later, the 90s marked a flourishing period for the brand, reaching its commercial peak, with the release of the famous baguette bag in 1997, also featured in all its possible and imaginable forms in the SS25 collection. A full century of successes, trials, errors and reinventions was thus the protagonist of the new Fendi SS25, a collection that stayed faithful to the brand in a fashion context where marketing rhetoric often takes over.