How do you measure 100 years of Fendi? For the house’s matriarch, Silvia Venturini Fendi—artistic director of accessories and menswear for the Roman label marking its centenary for fall 2025—the answer is love. Her anniversary show invitation came after former artistic director Kim Jones’s departure from the brand in October, and took the form of a lovely accordion-folded passepartout photo album filled with childhood pictures. Venturini Fendi is the third-generation member of the Italian fashion dynasty to work in the family business; her daughter, Delfina Delettrez Fendi, the label’s artistic director of jewelry, is the fourth. And Delettrez Fendi’s two sons, Dardo and Tazio Vascellari Fendi, are now officially the fifth: on Tuesday evening, the adorable 7-year-old twins opened the show dressed in a recut equestrian ensemble that the late longtime creative director Karl Lagerfeld designed for Venturini Fendi to wear at the same age.
Fendi is a house with a strong legacy in leather goods. Venturini Fendi’s grandparents, Edoardo Fendi and Adele Casagrande Fendi, opened Fendi’s historic boutique in the heart of Rome on via Borgognona selling handbags made with the Selleria top-stitching technique borrowed from saddles, and she began her own Fendi chapter in 1997 by designing the iconic Baguette shoulder bag made famous by Carrie Brashaw on Sex and the City. But while Sarah Jessica Parker herself was seated in the front row, Venturini Fendi was smart to not do an overly referential archive dive. She reimagined the Baguette and the Peekaboo top-handle from 2008 with shearling intarsia and fluted suede techniques, while giving 2005’s Spy carryall a deconstructed twisted shearling handle.
Another area where Fendi has historically excelled is fur—Lagerfeld designed the inverted double-F logo to stand for “fun furs”—but here, too, Venturini Fendi kept things moving forward in a way that felt right for an increasingly fur-free world. The opening look, a trompe l’oeil fur coat with a dramatic high collar, was made from shearling using intarsia, honeycomb, and patchwork techniques traditionally applied to fox, mink, and sable. The vibe was all very quiet-luxury-with-a-dash-of-exuberance, courtesy of soigné silhouettes in soothing earth tones that were given quirky details like cape backs and curled lettuce hems finished with mirror and crystal embroideries. And with a multi-generational all-star runway that included Alex Consani, Paloma Elsesser, Lindsey Wixson, Edie Campbell, Natasha Poly, Doutzen Kroes, Adriana Lima, Liya Kebede, Carolyn Murphy, Yasmin Le Bon, and Penelope Tree, Fendi was definitely feeling the amore.
