Milan Fashion Week: Fendi’s first post-Lagerfeld collection looks back to simpler times
Modelled by Kaia Jordan Gerber, Fendi revisit the brand’s ready-to-wear, 1960s roots in first collection since the death of founding womenswear designer Karl Lagerfeld
A naive streak is running through the collections on preview during Milan Fashion Week – with a return to simpler times, yesteryear prints and patterns, and unfussy silhouettes.
Checked gingham is making a comeback, while crushed velvet is making inroads into the summertime wardrobe as fashion takes comfort in nostalgia. Raffia bags and weave details also are on display.
Fendi seemed to have an atavistic, perhaps artistic, need to return to the brand’s ready-to-wear roots in the mid-1960s – to confront the first collection since the loss of Karl Lagerfeld, the brand’s founding womenswear designer from 1965 until his death last February.
The new collection by Silvia Venturini Fendi drew on easy 1960s mum styles, like quilted jackets and matching miniskirts, a garden floral cropped raincoat and skirt, and easy-to-wear terry-cloth skirts and canvas jackets. Woven bags and matching woven sweaters had a nostalgic, almost naive feel, countered by a plunging V-line and translucent print mini or matching macramé weave skirts.
