Within the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Fendi’s beauties took off on a recomposition of Debussy’s L’Après-midi d’un Faune. For this ‘Haute Fourrure’ Fall/Winter 2017 collection, Karl Lagerfeld and Silvia Venturini Fendi made the flower their favored motif. Often paired with summer ornamentation, the flower is transformed into a winter motif as Fendi crafts its petals out of fur. Entitled “Fendi Roma Haute Fourrure”, the collection was like an ode to flora and fauna in the very theater that hosted Vaslay Jininski’s experimental The Rite of Spring more than a century ago.
With an on-point mixture of artistic references, taking symbolism and Impressionism as an occasional guide, Fendi’s pieces looked like pieces of canvas. Karl Lagerfeld’s designs gave life to irises and blue poppies made of fur and mixed with leather foliage. This floral fur dress symbolizes all the power and emotion given off by this special couture runway. For there was exuberance, poetry, and so much joy in this multi-layered palette that drifted effortlessly from red to pink, yellow to blue.
Fendi is in bloom – “a symbolistic spring”, in the words of the Kaiser. The effect was complete: mini streams of fur formed a flower, while mink was worked into the lace itself. How did this magic come to be? With metallic jacquards, leather lace, and a golden needle that pokes and provokes a complex effect that only Fendi’s masterful technicians are able to create. This slightly insolent yet ever so celestial work earned Karl Lagerfeld a triple standing ovation; a magistral finish for an artisanship that’s just as magistral.
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