F is for freedom
A midriff-baring, cropped tailored jacket and a belly chain may seem like a bold proposition for the post-lockdown male wardrobe, but Silvia Venturini Fendi isn’t wasting any time. “Since our freedoms have been limited so much, I wanted to push the concept of breaking codes and being free whenever you want. That’s why I cut these jackets. I even put a mini-mini Baguette jewel on the belly chains,” she said on a video call from Rome before the premiere of her collection film. “We can’t abuse our freedom. We have to be careful,” the Fendi men’s designer pointed out, referring to the lockdown easing happening around the world. Dressing up, though, is a danger-free zone.
The collection revolved around Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana
Foregoing a runway show in Milan – “we thought it was still a time to do a video” – Venturini kept her collection close to home. “After all these months of restrictions, you have to find inspiration listening to yourself. This collection was very much inspired by the light that’s so physically present here in our headquarters,” she said, bathed in the golden Roman rays gushing through the chalky arches of her office in Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, the neoclassical monumental masterpiece that houses the Fendi empire. “I wanted to do it here. It’s a place that gives us a lot of good energy.” Shot over three days and supervised by Venturini (who moonlights as a producer on big-budget movies), the film showcased her collection through a day in the Fendi office.
Motifs were inspired by the views of Rome
Over the past year of limitations, Venturini has been finding inspiration in her immediate surroundings. Painted in the pastel colours of the Roman sky, her collection was entirely dreamt up from the geography and meteorology around the Fendi headquarters. A print interpreted a topographic view of Rome, each Fendi store pin-dropped for cheeky branding. Intarsia jackets, patterned knits and printed denim evoked the aerial views you’d see from the top floors of the Palazzo, and a camouflage motif nodded to Rome’s far horizons. “The view you get from this place… It makes you feel so small, and it gives you a new perspective. It makes even the most negative things look small. You feel a sense of hope,” she said.
Over the past year of limitations, Venturini has been finding inspiration in her immediate surroundings. Painted in the pastel colours of the Roman sky, her collection was entirely dreamt up from the geography and meteorology around the Fendi headquarters. A print interpreted a topographic view of Rome, each Fendi store pin-dropped for cheeky branding. Intarsia jackets, patterned knits and printed denim evoked the aerial views you’d see from the top floors of the Palazzo, and a camouflage motif nodded to Rome’s far horizons. “The view you get from this place… It makes you feel so small, and it gives you a new perspective. It makes even the most negative things look small. You feel a sense of hope,” she said.
Garments played with scale and lightness
Venturini translated the pandemic notion of our “shrunken world” into cuts, scaling cargo shorts down to short-short dimensions and minimising T-shirts into crop tops. Next to those chopped-off midriff jackets, the mood soon turned mischievous. “As you know, Roma has this peculiar attitude of being the Holy City, but full of sinners,” Venturini said and smiled: “I wanted these men to be very Roman.” Walking under the arches of the Palazzo, their bodies halfway up in the skies, they looked like they didn’t have a care in the world. “A light-hearted spirit is important now,” she said, but that lightness manifested as much in the physical construction of the garments. In a fabrication landscape where brands often forget how hot summer is, you can trust Fendi to make clothes you can actually breathe in circa 30 degrees.
Venturini translated the pandemic notion of our “shrunken world” into cuts, scaling cargo shorts down to short-short dimensions and minimising T-shirts into crop tops. Next to those chopped-off midriff jackets, the mood soon turned mischievous. “As you know, Roma has this peculiar attitude of being the Holy City, but full of sinners,” Venturini said and smiled: “I wanted these men to be very Roman.” Walking under the arches of the Palazzo, their bodies halfway up in the skies, they looked like they didn’t have a care in the world. “A light-hearted spirit is important now,” she said, but that lightness manifested as much in the physical construction of the garments. In a fabrication landscape where brands often forget how hot summer is, you can trust Fendi to make clothes you can actually breathe in circa 30 degrees.
The film featured an original soundtrack
After last season’s dance soundtrack featuring spoken-word vocals from Silvia Venturini Fendi herself, many of us were hoping for a follow-up single. We’ll have to wait a bit longer, but she did grace us with a dreamy original soundtrack by her son-in-law, the artist Nico Vascellari, and Alessandro Cortini of Nine Inch Nails fame. Venturini instead focused on the cinematographic side of things, creating one of the most visually striking fashion films of the pandemic period. Might Silvia Venturini Fendi be going to Hollywood? “Maybe one day. Cinecittà is maybe easier,” she quipped, referring to Fellini’s oft-used Roman studios not far from the Fendi headquarters.
After last season’s dance soundtrack featuring spoken-word vocals from Silvia Venturini Fendi herself, many of us were hoping for a follow-up single. We’ll have to wait a bit longer, but she did grace us with a dreamy original soundtrack by her son-in-law, the artist Nico Vascellari, and Alessandro Cortini of Nine Inch Nails fame. Venturini instead focused on the cinematographic side of things, creating one of the most visually striking fashion films of the pandemic period. Might Silvia Venturini Fendi be going to Hollywood? “Maybe one day. Cinecittà is maybe easier,” she quipped, referring to Fellini’s oft-used Roman studios not far from the Fendi headquarters.
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