For SS25, Silvia Venturini Fendi renewed her proclivity for timeless classics—leading the house’s to a new, “contemporary” destination.
If you’re looking for a well-fashioned take on this season’s subtle woolly separates and sharply-cut outerwear looks, Silvia Venturini Fendi might just be your girl. She’s always had a knack for sussing out the house’s trends in an approachable, fuss-free manner.
If the styling seemed a bit plain on the runway—workwear uniforms anyone? The collection will be broken down at the house’s stores and at global boutiques into risk-free wardrobe-essentials.
The pieces most likely to make the transition from catwalk to shop floors included the perfect cloth bomber jacket with the season’s fluid trench coat, which could be worn over just about anything. Slouchy knitted toppers with tailored waists and neutral Victorian shirts with what looked like hand-cut pants should also do well in stores.
Some pieces had too much of an up-of-the-town retro feel, and others weighed down with bulky volumes and elongated lines, but otherwise, this looked like a shrewd distillation of one direction fashion’s going for Spring.
As a homage to the universal, Fendi’s wardrobe’s pillars become just like sartorial puzzle pieces, activating all manner of soft expressions of contemporary masculinity through the lens of modern luxury. As a core element of an international elite, the notion of uniforms for work and volume play was deconstructed and created anew in powdery shades, encompassing a mineral palette of sherbet and mist, ivory, caramel and buttermilk; placed together, they were nicely paired with soft blues and natural indigo, black and forest green.
Somewhere between the traditional and the functional, the idea of the Fendi Club emerges, and its shape is proudly emblazoned in the form of a fantasy coat-of-arms on chest pockets and fastenings.
Dig a little deeper, though, and Silvia Venturini Fendi’s worldview emerges. Simply put, she makes clothes—and accessories and bags—for urban men with a somewhat romantic streak and a need for stuff that even though they look plain to sight, they work.
The romance reveals itself in both the collection’s vintage touches—case in point: the virtuosity of the Selleria stitch, a technique passed to the Fendi family by Roman master saddlers in 1925—and in the fabrications, as seen in a broken pinstripe suiting jacquard threaded as a stripe.
Elsewhere, the make-it-work things come to the fore in tonal FF logo details done through linen and plush textures, applied as a surface on Japanese boro denim, or reduced to a minimalist element of sartorial workmanship.
Fendi’s offerings are too spare to be as immediately captivating as its accessories, but upon closer inspection, the handmade properties that are a brand trademark make them staples worthy of note.
by Chidozie Obasi