LA DOLCE VITAE
The enviable career of Silvia Venturini Fendi all started with a call to individualism – a philosophy the Roman designer and her covetable bags still champion today
Give me your bag!” “What?” “Your bag.” “It’s a Baguette.” The day Carrie Bradshaw got mugged in a New York alley on Sex And The City was defining for two reasons. One: from that day forth it was officially acceptable to take your OTT purple sequinned bag out for a quick spot of casual shopping. Two: the original It-bag had cemented its place in popular culture as a fashion icon. It was the turn of the new millennium and the introduction of the highly coveted accessory conceived by Silvia Venturini Fendi (above right) was changing the way we viewed luxury bags and would continue to do so over the next two decades.
“When I started designing the bags, I wanted to make my own little revolution,” says Venturini Fendi, on her first trip to Australia for the official launch of the new Sydney Fendi boutique. “It was the moment of minimalism, so I was like, ‘I have to do something totally different and change the fact that everybody is dressed the same.’ The Baguette was the response to that. It came out at the right moment because there was a need for change.” The long, thin, soft bag designed to be tucked under the arm was both functional and fabulous, celebrating the individual via countless embellishments and inspiring feverish waiting lists.
The relief of success that Venturini Fendi felt in her role as creative director for accessories of the Roman luxury house must have been great considering she had a lot to live up to. If being raised under the matriarchy of founder Adele Fendi and her daughters – her mother Anna and
four aunts, Paola, Carla, Franca and Alda – wasn’t pressure enough, Karl Lagerfeld was at the helm of ready-to-wear, long before he began splitting his time with Chanel. But it was the role she’d been training for all her life. “I was always there, even when I was very little. Instead of being at home with my sisters playing with dolls, I always found an excuse to see my mother at the atelier and especially when I heard Karl was coming from Paris.” Wearing a minimal shirt and slacks with a cardigan draped across her shoulders, today the ageless designer (and mother of three grown children, including jeweller Delfina Delettrez Fendi) is the picture of classic Italian style. But the Fendi woman would not be complete without a cheeky twist, in this case a colourfully patterned velvet Kan I bag, a style introduced for resort 17 and starring again on the recent AW17-18 runway. With a top handle and long shoulder strap, and tiny metal rings perfectly positioned for personalising with charms (the famous Fendi bugs were another of Venturini Fendi’s creations), it’s the ideal blend of practical and playful and has been popping up on street-style stars and supermodels alike (hey, Kendall).
Whether the Kan I will match the success of brand heroes like the Baguette and the iconic Peekaboo remains to be seen. But as Venturini Fendi says, the magic of a hit bag is a mix of skill and alchemy. “When you do a bag you just do it without thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is going to be a success.’ So we will see, because it’s quite recent. It’s already doing well, but you know... At Fendi we follow our DNA. Our way to do the bags is to do them in different versions,” she says of the myriad colours and embellishments on offer. “We think it’s important to give options. To be democratic.”
She adds, “There’s a Fendi way of doing things. I push my team to do research and to make it differently, not to look at what others are doing. Fendi has always been [about] taking risks and sometimes using old techniques – twisting them, mixing old and new.” And after 23 years as creative director of accessories, does she sometimes look to the archives? “I don’t need to; I know them. Karl always says, ‘We are the archives!’”
Like with any collaboration of creative minds, Venturini Fendi and Lagerfeld’s working relationship is one of give and take. “He has his idea, I bring some references, maybe I find a material and I show him – it’s like that. Karl is very... he knows what he wants,” she says. “He sends a lot of interesting books and ideas and we talk, Skype, sometimes we send messages. Technology helps. Before, things were lost at the post office!”
For AW17-18, their brainstorming resulted in an army of wax red thigh-high boots – worn with sheer dresses, herringbone suiting, knifepleated midi-skirts, cuffed tweed pants, those covetable bags and hoop earrings bearing Fendi’s reworked F logo. It was a gimmickfree, grown-up collection that put a focus on craftsmanship, and an empowering moment in a season of fashion intended for strong women. It’s a message the designer can cautiously get behind. “For me, to be a woman has been easy because in my family, being a woman is a plus, it’s not a minus. Even if in the world sometimes it’s not like that. I was [a] feminist from the very first day of my life because I’ve seen in front of me, women who were acting like men. That’s why I’ve always been ready to support and fight for women’s rights. I’m happy that today fashion is embracing this. But it doesn’t have to become just a trend – it should be something that has to continue, not just as a runway statement but in real life.”
For now, Venturini Fendi will do what she’s always done: create must-have investment pieces for clever, open-minded women who are interested in understanding the quality and process of things. For her, it’s the woman who carries the bag, not the other way around. “I think it’s a personal choice,” she says. “Function is more important today than ever before because we have a different kind of life... But also playfulness, because at the end of the day it’s only fashion. This light-hearted spirit has to stay.”