“It’s Celestial And Spacey”: Kim Jones On His S/S'22 Haute Couture Collection For Fendi

Kim Jones closed the haute couture shows in Paris with a sci-fi Fendi collection inspired by the ancient and futuristic balance embodied by the house’s hometown of Rome. Set in a galactic black box inside La Bourse, illuminated fragments of Roman arches were suspended from the ceiling, hovering over Jones’s radiant evening dresses and hand-painted images of Roman statues on velvet gowns, with magnificently hand-crafted jewellery by Delfina Delettrez. During a preview, British Vogue’s fashion critic Anders Christian Madsen spoke to Jones about the show.

How did Fendi’s hometown inspire this collection?

“Rome, for me, has so many layers to it. It’s such an ancient city. We’re always thinking of the past, present and future of it. The idea of different times and that very spiritual side of Rome, which becomes almost celestial; almost spacey.”

Is it the sci-fi notion of the very ancient versus the futuristic?

“Yeah, because that’s what Rome really stands for to me. You think of people digging in their gardens and finding all these things from thousands of years ago, and then they build that building on top of it. Our headquarters, the area it’s in, is kind of very sci-fi.”

What made you think of space?

“The idea of the future and what’s going on in the world. I’ve been reading and looking at lots of sci-fi recently. I read Dune again because I’d watched it and I wanted to remind myself what the book was like. And the actual Star Wars book by George Lucas. I have all these [Alejandro] Jodorowsky things that he did about Dune; the book he did on it.”

How does it manifest?

“It’s the idea of these women coming out and being strong and warrior empress-y, but in a slightly ghostly way. We wanted them to be very long and tall this season. It’s the idea that when people saw emperors and empresses they were always high up.”

What thoughts went into your cast?

“We just wanted really tall girls. That’s what we were looking for. And some Fendi faces that we just really love working with.”

Is it mainly evening-focused?

“There’s some tailoring, but we thought it would be nice to be a bit fancy this season because you really can be if things are going to start getting back to normal. I’m always aware it’s not the only place in Rome that does couture, so we want to make sure we’re a different voice coming out of the city.”

Is it realism or escapism?

“At this moment in time, couture is quite a strange thing with what’s going on in the world. Customers can’t see it, so everything gets sent to them. It’s a bit of a fantasy. It’s showing craftsmanship and techniques we can’t show in ready-to-wear. The ready-to-wear is very ready-to-wear and that’s fun mixing that up, and here it’s really looking at specific techniques that come from Fendi and working with it. The little dress that Lila wore is the best-seller. It’s interesting to see what people buy.”

What parts of the world do they come from?

“America is a lot and Russia is a lot. And quite a lot of wedding dress requests. Both at Fendi and Dior, I love meeting the very important customers that buy a lot and seeing what they’re into. It really helps you learn about what to do as well, because it’s nice to be able to indulge them.”

How have clients responded to your couture?

“The first one did really well. The second one is still being sold because it goes around to people all over the world because they can’t travel. There’s new clients and old ones as well, and different ones. People get in touch in so many different ways. The sales have been crazy, so we’re enjoying being able to do it.”

Would you like to go to space?

“I always quite wanted to go to space but then I don’t like the thought of those things burning up in the atmosphere. It’s not the way I wanna go.”

Are you friends with any of the billionaire space racers?

“Yeah, I know a couple of them, I’m not gonna lie. But I’d like to get them to test it a bit more first.”