Triple F: Where Vintage and Creativity Meet
● Triple F was born in 2020 from an idea of Federica Formilli Fendi’s and with the codirection of D’Emilio, with the aim of recovering and reinterpreting cult pieces.
Federica Formilli Fendi and Carlo Alberto D'Emilio have had a passion for ‘90s vintage since they started working together at Fendissime, where they were in charge of the research and the image of the younger Fendi brand, which closed in 2001. This led them to the creation of their new project, Triple F.
“Our project is just like a house. Everything that you can find in a home, you can also find it here. When you are at home you throw the coat on the sofa, you take off your shoes next to the coffee table, that's how we wanted to arrange things here,” said D'Emilio, co-creative director of Triple F.
Triple F, whose name derives from Federica Formilli Fendi's initials, was launched in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic and lockdown, with the aim of recovering and reinterpreting cult pieces. It carries out an intermediary activity by acquiring objects or clothing from private sellers and reselling them through their e-commerce platform.
Formilli Fendi said “vintage is something that amuses me and so we had a lot of fun in the initial stages.” Moreover she explained that, “on our site there is a discount policy that invites users to come back often, to visit it multiple times to see whether an item has been discounted. For every month that passes without the item being sold we apply a 10 percent discount for the first month, a 20 percent discount for the second and a 30 percent discount for the third month.” This is a strategy that drives users to return to the site, and the item to be sold at a relatively low price.
Thanks to Formilli Fendi's knowledge and adjacency to the fashion world, she and D'Emilio were able to select unique pieces as well as staple Fendi pieces to sell on their platform. Its innovative formula in which the customer can also become a seller and vice versa, allows the website to have a continuous exchange.
But besides being an online selling platform, Triple F is also a creative space situated in the historic building of Via Delle Mantellate, in the heart of Rome — a place that was converted by various contemporary artists to a home and workplace. As Formilli Fendi explained: “Carlo and I always had in mind to have our own creative space to act as an exhibition space, not as a shop, because it seemed more intimate and unique to us. It was originally an artist's studio and we thought that it was perfect for us because of its history and beautiful location, it felt exactly like a home in which to host our friends.”
In the future, they would like Casa Triple F to be a place to host events, perhaps book presentations or art exhibitions. As D'Emilio puts it, “if there is something that seems interesting to us then we will pursue it, but there won't be a calendar, it will all be very spontaneous and natural.”
Ultimately, through the project they would like to continue to “recover something that is perhaps old, or that we think that can be thrown away, but that object has been loved, it has its own life, so we would like to raise awareness and continue to sell beautiful pieces that have made our history and are still in our memories,” he concluded.