Carla Fendi

Italian luxury goods designer was member of famous fashion family

Carla Fendi, one of five sisters who transformed the family leather goods business into a luxury fashion house that was one of Italy’s first to win global renown, died in Rome last Monday following a long illness. She was 79.

“She was for all of us a source of inspiration and an example of dedication, culture of work and sensitivity to beauty,” the Rome-based company said.

Carla’s parents, Edoardo and Adele Fendi, founded the company in 1925 with a store front- ing the workshop in Via del Plebiscito in Rome’s historic centre, but it was with the next generation that surged it to prominence as ready-to-wear took off in Italy.

The five Fendi sisters - Paola, Anna, Franca, Carla and Alda took control of the family business after their father’s death and opened their first Fendi store in another location in Rome in 1964. A year later they hired a young designer named Karl Lagerfeld who helped catapult the Italian brand to global fame by elevating fur from staid symbols of luxury to fashion pieces, acquiring lightness and softness, becoming easier to wear and less pompous.

Under Lagerfeld’s direction, Fendi arguably became the most famous furriers in the world. The brand also helped revolutionise leather handbags in the 1990s, making them softer and less rigid, while Fendi’s niece, Silvia Venturini Fendi, invented the famed Fendi baguette bag inspired in shape by the traditional French loaf.