Carla Fendi, one of fashion label’s five sisters, dies — Reports
ROME: Carla Fendi, who along with four sisters helped build her parents’ leather and fur goods shop in Rome into a global fashion powerhouse, has died aged 80, Italian press reports said on Tuesday.
Her death on Monday was reported by members of her family, according to the reports.
It was Carla and her sisters — Paola, Anna, Franca and Alda — who in 1965 brought in Karl Lagerfeld, then a young German designer, to create a women’s ready-to-wear-line.
Honorary president of the Fendi group, now a part of the LVMH fashion conglomerate, Carla Fendi focused mainly on public relations and fostering the label’s international growth.
An enthusiastic fan of art and music, Carla Fendi created in 2007 a foundation for supporting Italy’s cultural heritage, and was one of the main benefactors of the Festival dei Due Mondi (“Festival of Two Worlds”), an annual classical music festival in Spoleto, central Italy.
Fendi’s fashionable fourth sister formed a stylish couple with Turin-born pharmacist Candido Speroni who passed away in 2013. After 55 years together, they celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary in 2010 with a lavish party for 400 guests. Their sophisticated apartment in Rome was the focus of a photospread in Architectural Digest.
Fashion aside, Art and Culture were Carla Fendi’s two other passions. A well known patron of the Arts, she set up the Carla Fendi Foundation in 2007.
The restoration of Rome’s Trevi Fountains and Teatro Caio Melisso are some of the projects that underline Carla Fendi’s commitment to the Arts.
Established in 1925, the Fendi brand has come a long way from its original fur and leather heritage.
In addition to ready-to-wear, accessories, designer perfume and luggage, the fashion empire now carries eyewear and home furnishings lines. — AFP