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fendi aw25 | lo spirito del tempo

For its 100th birthday, Fendi traced not only through archives but through memory — personal, collective, and imagined. Silvia Venturini Fendi curated a collection rooted in the past but with a far-sighted approach. “Fendi reminds me of the future,” she says. Autumn/Winter 2025-26 steps into the brand’s next century by distilling its essence: Roman precision with a sense of play, craft elevated through experimentation, the tension between structure and fluidity.  

The show itself became part of the story. Invitations arrived as accordion-folded photo albums, piecing together moments from the house’s past: a young Silvia Venturini Fendi at her first fashion show, Karl Lagerfeld’s 1966 debut, and glimpses of Fendi’s evolution. In Milan, Spazio Fendi was transformed into a reimagining of the house’s early days on Via Borgognona, where the five Fendi sisters shaped its identity. The opening belonged to Delfina Delettrez Fendi’s twin sons, stepping into the past as they pushed open the wooden doors in equestrian looks once worn by their mother.

That interplay of tradition and reinvention ran through the collection, where silhouettes shifted between discipline and movement, materials subvert expectation, and tailoring is both strict and undone. A flared coat, worn as a dress, cinched at the waist with a fine gold belt. Shearling — traditionally reserved for trim — became the focal point, worked with intarsia and patchwork to mimic fox and mink while remaining unmistakably modern. The hourglass shape appeared in flounced corolla jackets and marbled plissé skirts, while raw-cut menswear coats wrapped the body with hidden fastenings. The colour palette mirrored Rome at dusk — deep laurel and graphite give way to terracotta, scarlet, and a softened pink.  

Tailoring was razor-sharp: bracelet-sleeve blazers, sharply cut flares, trench coats in oversized lambskin or scarf-collared plissé taffeta. Shearling stoles layered over lingerie dresses and fine knits, bridging formality and ease. Textures played against expectation — duchesse satin sculpted into a bishop’s sleeve, crystal embroidery disrupting checked bouclé, Chantilly lace layered into menswear shirting.  

Accessories reflect the house’s evolving codes. Front row at the show, Sarah Jessica Parker — aka the original Baguette girl — watched as the icon she helped turn into a cultural phenomenon hit the runway once again. The Fendi Giano, a structured ‘click-clack’ purse, transforms from clutch to shoulder bag, its surfaces stamped with house symbols. The Spy Bag, reworked with a twisted shearling handle, joins the Baguette and Peekaboo in new interpretations. 

Footwear continues the theme of illusion — satin boots and eel slippers curve into sculptural heels, desert boots arrive in wild shearling and lambskin. Delfina Delettrez Fendi’s jewellery echoes the collection’s materiality, with silver snake chains, layered obelisk pendants, and en tremblant earrings catching the light like fur.  

A century in, and Fendi is still writing its own future. Roman at its core, irreverent at heart, and always pushing craftsmanship forward.

Discover the collection here.

photography. Fendi 
words. Gennaro Costanzo