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Fendi at Milan fashion week: a memorial to Karl Lagerfeld


Before his death on Tuesday, Karl Lagerfeld had finished work on what was to be his final collection for Fendi. Every detail, right down to the sketches of key silhouettes which he drew each season to be reproduced and left on each seat in the show, was decided.

When they spoke a few days ago, “his only thoughts were on the richness and beauty of the collection,” recalled Silvia Venturini Fendi yesterday of her final conversation with the designer who ran her family brand for 54 years.

And so it was that the Fendi show, which went ahead in its usual Milan fashion week slot on Thursday, felt closer to a final appearance by Lagerfeld than to a posthumous memorial. This was 15 minutes of pure Karl. He was there in the chin-tickling height of the starched and pointy white collars, a style he himself always wore, and in the intertwined FF Karligraphy monogram he designed in 1981, embossed into the carpeted runway.

The juxtaposition of butter-wouldn’t-melt ladylike tailoring with tongue-in-cheek accessories, which Lagerfeld made a signature both at Fendi and at Chanel, was here in almost every look. A double-breasted blazer was worn with logo-printed tights, and a prim sheath dress with a red leather bum-bag. The models included many of Lagerfeld’s favourite names from the current A-list roster, including Kaia Gerber and Fran Summers.

Silvia Venturini Fendi and Karl Lagerfeld at the Trevi Fountain in Rome, July 2016.



Silvia Venturini Fendi and Karl Lagerfeld at the Trevi Fountain in Rome, July 2016. Photograph: Giorgio Onorati/EPA

Along with Lagerfeld’s sketches, each seat in the venue was set with a small card bearing an F, a loveheart and Lagerfeld’s signature, and, inscribed on the back, the date of his death.

After the show Silvia Fendi, the only member of the founding family still working in the business, took the place of Lagerfeld for a brief catwalk bow, to a soundtrack of Heroes by David Bowie, whose music Lagerfeld adored.

As Fendi disappeared backstage, a video screen flashed up a message: “54 Years Together” – a reference to Lagerfeld’s record-breaking tenure at the Italian house, which Silvia Fendi yesterday called “fashion’s longest love story”. A tribute film showed Lagerfeld at his desk, a box of his favoured Faber-Castell drawing pastels at one elbow and his ever-present glass of Diet Coke at the other, sketching himself in the outfit he wore for his very first day at Fendi in 1965. It was greeted with a standing ovation.

Silvia Fendi, a granddaughter of the founders, was the designer of the 1997 Fendi Baguette bag, one of the very first “It” handbags. In recent years she has expanded her role at the house to include responsibility for menswear and childrenswear, as well as accessories.

Fendi has declined to make any comment on a succession as yet, preferring to focus first on paying Lagerfeld “the homage he deserves”, but it is thought likely that she may be given a figurehead role at the brand. At Milan the name of Maria Grazia Chiuri, the Italian creative director of Christian Dior, a stablemate brand of Fendi’s at LVMH, has also been mentioned in connection with the Fendi succession.

The mood was lighter at Max Mara, where British designer Ian Griffiths knows exactly what the customer wants for next winter: a camel coat. Just as legend has it that the Inuit language has 50 words for snow, the Max Mara design studio has four for the colour others call camel. (Tobacco and beige belong to another category entirely.) A high-stepping phalanx of models, sleekly dressed in classically luxurious coats and heeled boots, made a strong case for Max Mara’s brand of grownup glamour. “I make a distinction between glamour, and fashion,” said Griffiths backstage after his show. “Glamour is more liberating. It lends a woman power.”



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