Feel Good Factor
The Happy Room—fendi’s travelling VIP room—debuts at Design Miami, and brings a smile to Daphne Chen-cordeiro’s
his feels surreal. i am at a poolside bar in Miami facing a killer view of South Beach, stretched out on a linen couch, bare feet in a sandpit, laughing over a video of Fendirumi Piro-chan and Bug-kun while sitting next to the Silvia Venturini Fendi herself. I bring up the stampede when the six-foot pair of furry Fendi mascots graced the fashion house’s The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands boutique reopening last December. “People do love them,” admits the third-generation member of the Fendi empire and creative director of accessories and menswear. “So Karl [Lagerfeld] and I won’t have to go down, we just send them out. We open a store: Why don’t we send the Fendirumi? We are very smart!” Fendi is a Roman fashion dynasty steeped in history. Yet, it is one of the few luxury houses that gets what it means to be youthful and relevant, always staying ahead of the curve. Take the Bag Bugs: the little irreverent monster mink charms that have taken the fashion world by storm. Then came the Fendirumi, the charm-turned-mascots flown to Fendi parties the world over, with legions of fans in every city. And the latest project: A travelling VIP room, christened the Happy Room, which makes its debut at Design Miami—the very reason for my visit here in sunny Florida. “It’s a new way of approaching the stores. Now, going into a store is always about an experience and this is a nice way of surprising customers. The store is never the same: not just the window displays but the decor inside too,” Silvia explains. The VIP room is a collection of 12 creations dreamt up by up-and-coming Italian designer Cristina Celestino. It is an unapologetically
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