Fendi: the enduring allure of craft

The models walked around a marble floored squared, an impression of Fendi’s headquarter in Rome. As Klaus Nomi’s ‘The Cold Song played out, it was a balmy evening, teetering towards Paris’ tropical summer, the cold winds are long gone. It was quite the apt setting for a fashion week dedicated to Fall 2023 couture.The elegant surroundings and even Mother Nature pitching in with the right weather quite did it well for Kim Jones who placed the creative synergy between himself and Delfina Delletrez this season with the inclusion of Fendi haute jewellery by Delfina. One thing one can be certain about is that Fendi is never droned on, their collection is always inspiring and usually in a cloud of pastel-coloured bling that never downslides towards the terribly gaudy.This critique is directed towards their couture show as well.Kim and Delfina had their minds primarily on commerce, showcasing retail-friendly clothes. This brings in the coin, especially when it is pastel coloured, embellished with winding trellises, fashion into flowing and easy-breezy silhouette.Fendi wielded plenty of sartorial clout. It was pure unadulterated fashion, draped and tweaked into avant-garde silhouettes, eschewing generic neoprene tailored furs that are often passed off as ‘design’. There was easy, masterful layering at play, drapes upon drapes, merging into a single silhouette; pure silk and handloomed fabric in black and metallic moulded into jackets, capes, slinky one-shoulder full length sleek dresses and skirts. The Kim Jones signature is distinctive and, as always, the designer raised the bar. He merged the 1990s minimalist aesthetics with the statuary of ancient Rome.At the other end of the spectrum, the workmanship on Delfina’s jewellery pieces was meticulous. It was minimal, exquisitely made, effortless high fashion. "There is an emotional relationship that I have with the jewellery in the collection that I hope the women who will eventually wear it will have too,” says Delfina Delettrez Fendi, Artistic Director of Jewellery for FENDI. The distinctive diamond earrings, brooches and necklaces studded with pink spinels and yellow diamonds, skillfully incorporated tiny geometric plays on the Fendi logo. Some of the compositions felt almost sci-fi, as if you were looking at a digital screen. Despite their innate opulence, there was a lightness and subtlety to the designs and this is what makes it timeless.Individualistic, with restrained elegance, pushing boundaries rather than simply pandering to a bling-smitten mass mentality, a Kim Jones show invariably serves as an example of what a designer collection should be all about. It also exemplifies what a fashion event should be all about. Unfortunately, not every designer venturing on to the runway manages to understand this. In a world churning with embroidery, large voluminous silhouettes, glitter and over-designing, it was a breath of fresh air.