Kim Jones explores classicism and elegance through the lens of subtle subversion for Fendi’s AW2023 Women’s Collection. Jones plays with binaries, exploring and elevating deconstruction, interpolating gendered archetypes, and disturbing ladylike sophistication. The illusion of insouciance is elegantly constructed, with pieces designed to be worn every which way.
Meanwhile, masculine tailoring and traditional fabrics twist into feminine forms. Utilitarianism elements appear throughout, such as boilersuits, aprons, and uniforms. Lacquered and layered lace and flashes of fetishism appear through slips of lingerie peeking through or thigh-high lace-up boots. A clean-cut mac falls open to flash its sequined lining, and bias-cut draped dresses or Persian lamb bibs appear with harnessed straps.
The Fendi’s AW2023 Women’s Collection also presents a perfected perspective on punk where knitwear appears cleanly slashed or gently warped. Felted wools are slightly shrunken, ribbed knits left unbuttoned, or worn askew. Satin dresses with a twisted drape are romantically trailed by billowing scarves.
The Autumn/Winter 1996 Fendi archive inspires graphic motifs, seamlessly expressed in intarsia, alongside Karl Lagerfeld’s 1981 sketches for multipurpose knitwear. The history of the House is reflected anew.
A Fendi New Handbag Two Distinct Silhouettes
Silvia Venturini Fendi also presented a new handbag, the Fendi Origami, which pays homage to the multipurpose sensibility innate to the House, through a shape that engineers to transform between two distinct silhouettes. “That duality theme is very Fendi – as is the idea of something which appears simple but, in reality, is very complex,” she reflects. The newly conceived Fendi C’mon also draws on that same supposed simplicity: “The idea was to create pieces that were very pure in order to match the sophistication of the collection,” she says.
Delfina Delettrez Fendi designs the jewellery, exploring the purity of the double F, locking on the ear. “Like the collection, it goes to the very essence of Fendi,” she says.
Kim Jones concludes, “It all started with Delfina. There’s a chicness but a perversity to the way she twists FENDI, which is what I love.”
