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On a warm Thursday during Couture Week, attendees were whisked from Paris to Rome for Fendi’s off-schedule couture show, staged at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea against the backdrop of a reprised 1985 Karl Lagerfeld exhibition.
For her debut at Fendi, Maria Grazia Chiuri looked to the house’s founding sisters rather than her own signature. This was clear from the moment the first two models stepped onto the runway, wrapped in Fendi’s signature stripe motif reimagined across gauzy, see-through layers.
This week, we’ve seen designers transform or accentuate the female body with voluminous feathered nest-like hoods and form-moulded bodices respectively. At Fendi, Chiuri allowed the models’ bodies to simply be. With georgette, velvet and grain de poudre, and silhouettes that favoured soft drapes over rigid construction, it was a lesson in restraint and wearable ease.
Silk shirts were tucked loosely into tailored trousers and unbuttoned to reveal long gold chain necklaces, scalloped lace silk shorts layered with matching bralettes and robe-like coats, and blazers softened with silk fabrication and wide sleeves. Even 1920s art deco geometric prints were accented with fringe detailing that swayed as models walked down the runway.
The kimono also emerged as an unexpected throughline, reworked into jackets and coats for both men and women, extending the unisex dressing concept Chiuri has been building on since arriving at the house. One standout georgette dress used inlaid strips of black and white leather in a graphic motif that shifted with the body beneath it, a piece Chiuri told WWD needed to be “constructed and reproportioned around each specific body.” Elsewhere, she indulged in sensual transparencies, offset by exacting intarsia, lace and embroidery work that spoke to the precision of Fendi’s ateliers.
It all amounted to clothes that spoke softly rather than demanding attention, marking Chiuri’s debut a considered, confident opening statement at Fendi.
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