Fendi marks 100th year with 1920s-inspired Milan fashion week show

When a fashion brand makes it to its centenary, there are usually a plethora of important moments to reference in celebration. In the case of the Rome-based fashion house Fendi, artistic director Kim Jones has one the most illustrious fashion archives to play with.

Co-founded by Adele Fendi in 1925, who later passed the reins to her five daughters, Fendi is famed for its era-defining ensembles, pop-cult baguette handbag and artistic collaborations, most notably with Karl Lagerfeld who was the brand’s creative director for 54 years until his death in 2019.

Jones, who has been the artistic director of Fendi’s womenswear collections since 2020, frequently mines the archives but turned the clock right back to 1925 for his spring/summer 2025 show at Milan fashion week on Tuesday, peppering it with iconic creations from throughout its history and with era-defining references.

“1925 has so many milestone moments; it is the founding year of Fendi, but also the year of the art deco exhibition. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby are also published,” said Jones, himself an avid collector with one of the largest private collections of Woolf’s works.

“There’s modernism in dress, design, decoration and thought [and so we] approached the collection with these things in mind, as an amalgam of epochs, moods and techniques – then and now.”

Silhouettes synonymous with the 1920s dominated, with dropped waists, art-deco crystal detailing and hemline fringing, before evolving into cinched-waist pencil skirts and pressed-collar shirt dresses that rose to prominence in the 1940s.

As a London-born designer, grounding the collection with an air of dishevelment comes naturally to Jones. Here, that was depicted by pairing rich silk Jacquards and delicate layers of chiffon with industrial desert boots made in collaboration with Red Wing – which have featured in Fendi’s menswear collections since the 1950s.

“I don’t like looking at things in a reflective or nostalgic way,” said Jones, adding that his Fendi wardrobe was one that reflected the way that women wear and style clothes now. It has “movement, lightness, excellence and ease. Simply the ability for a wearer to live contemporary life in a collection is key.”

To that end, the baguette got a slouchy update in corduroy because “that’s what my friends carry to work”. Jones namechecked his best friend, Kate Moss, as a constant modern-day muse: “When you’re on holiday [and] you’re watching Kate get dressed for dinner, it’s quite fun to see the amount of different clothes getting tried on just to go for dinner on the beach.”

Amid uncertain times for the luxury fashion industry, when many heritage houses’ profits are plummeting, Fendi’s parent company, LVMH, reported a record year for 2023. Without breaking out figures, it cited Fendi, among others, as achieving record levels of revenue and profits, suggesting that not entirely reinventing the wheel when it comes to a 100-year-old house may just be the key to such success.