25th January 2024
Paris Fashion Week
Fendi SS24 Couture Review
The show had the same regality as artistic director Kim Jones’ gemstone inspired AW 23 Couture last July, except with the added ethereal elegance of a minimal colour palette adorned with sequins. The first and final looks featured the same boxy-silhouette strapless sheath dress, the first an understated but powerful jet black and the final a liquid-like sequined silver. The late Karl Lagerfeld, who worked with the brand for over 5 decades, said that
‘Luxury is the ease of a t-shirt in a very expensive dress’,
and by marrying Fendi’s flawless craftsmanship with Jones’ Karl-coded minimalist design, the show proved exactly that.
This felt much more refined than Kim Jones’ first debut for Fendi, SS21. The sequin panelled contrast dresses showed off soft silhouettes that flowed with the movement of the body, while we did not witness any Fendi Pergamena yellow, we did see a single glimpse of teal in the form of a backless gown. The atelier used dyes, furs and metallics to create a feather-like fabric that was used in several of these garments, it caught the light in a way that likened the fur of a mammal to the scales of a fish.
Silvia Veturini Fendi had her daughter, jewellery designer, Delfina Delettrez Fendi return for a second couture show, expanding her talents to eyewear as she created a handful of curiously delicate yet alien pairs of specs, adorned with diamonds. Aside from these, the only jewellery Delettrez displayed were silver ear cuffs around the cartilage of the models ears, leaving the rest of the body unadorned by jewellery.
In keeping with Fendi’s notoriety for fur, Jones displayed an array of furs; metallic, floor length and fantastic. The absence of the Fendi Zucca monogram was made up for by the prominence of Fendi’s ‘Fun Furs’ that inspired the iconic logo. Silvia incorporated plum-burgundy fur trim into the classic 1997 Fendi Baguette bag alongside croc embossed leather and beaded sequin tassels that skimmed the floor. This, against the barely there makeup and slicked back hair created what Gen Z might call an amalgamation of the ‘mob wife’ and the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic.
The whole collection had a very natural, zoomorphic feel due to the recurring silvers in the mesh dresses, pointed kitten heels and beaded sleeves. Fendi’s textured fabrics were intrinsic to the sensuality of the show which was enhanced by the soundtrack ‘All Human Beings’ by European composer Max Richter. The show played a voiceless version of the song which originally reads the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Intentional or not, this nod to activism felt fitting alongside a collection inspired by the natural world and I suppose too, the people who live in it.