With Kim Jones‘ Fendi, there are ups and downs. The resort 2023 fashion show, which opened New York Fashion Week and celebrated Baguette’s anniversary, was a high. The spring-summer 2023 collection which opened Milan Fashion Week wasn’t entirely bad, but it was… mediocre. One might easily mistake it with a brand like Max Mara or Sportmax. And Fendi isn’t really a brand that fits this profile, lifestyle-wise. The collection’s shots of color, in green and blue and fiery red, were, as Jones said, purposefully projected across a clothes-scape of the neutrals that are key to the Fendi identity in order to generate new freshness to the jolt of recognition. The double-F logo first drafted by Karl Lagerfeld in 2000 was used all over the line-up. Its graphic geometric severity contrasted with the silhouetted botanical relief that Jones said had featured in a ’96-vintage Lagerfeld outing for the house. This featured on pieces including a laser-sliced leather vest and sheer, organza, Fendi-brown racerback dresses and tops. Obi-belt detailing and the inverted masculine tailoring were respectively nods back to the most recent Jones for Fendi Couture collection, and then autumn before that. Explaining this, Jones unpacked part of the process that will allow him to produce 11 collections this year (he thinks) and probably 12 collections next year. He said: “I program it so that if you put fall and then Couture and then this in a row the brand makes sense. And then there will be another to build upon it after this.” Noting that Jones also does four collections a year at Dior Man (plus all the creative direction), this entire statement sounds, well, terrifying.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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