FENDI Couture Spring/Summer 2021 In Shanghai

FENDI presents its latest Spring/Summer 2021 Kim Jones’ Couture Collection and Exhibition of Rare Books and Manuscripts at Shanghai Exhibition Centre, following the debut in Paris.

Reflecting on transcendent romance and timeless creativity, for his debut FENDI collection Kim Jones draws on the renegade British sensibility of the Bloomsbury Group while paying homage to the storied history of the Roman Maison. For FENDI Couture Spring/Summer 2021, seemingly diverse inspirations find common ground and are interwoven: the enduring allure of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell’s liberated creativity explored alongside the eternal language of Italian sculpture and FENDI’s foundational codes.

Adopting the time-travelling, binary-blurring novel as a central motif, temporalities are warped while exquisite femininity and masculine androgyny appear as fluid choices rather than innate realities. A love letter written by Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West in 1928 – only three years after FENDI was founded – Orlando’s literary conceits are directly interspersed throughout the collection: sometimes in the form of metal-bound book clutches, sometimes lines from the text inscribed into Mother of Pearl minaudières or leather boots. Extracts from letters written between Virginia and Vita during their decades-long courtship are read aloud by friends and family of FENDI throughout the Max Richter composition that scores the show.

Motifs discovered at Charleston farmhouse – the Sussex home of the Bloomsbury set, located only a short distance from where Jones spent much of his childhood – are revived and recontextualised through ornately beaded boots and hand-painted heels; the Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant frescoes which decorate its walls adapted in-to embroidered embellishments on gowns. “I like how this family of people – and particularly these two pioneering sisters – moved things forward,” notes Jones. “I admire the way that they lived their lives, the freedom that they created for themselves and the art that they left behind for the world.”

The hand-printed, marble-bound books published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf for Hogarth Press – displayed at the show’s accom-panying literary exhibition – offer a seamless segue into classical Italian aesthetics. Mirroring the marble palette of Rome’s Galleria Borghese, whose Bernini sculptures inform the dramatic deshabillé drapery found in the collection, they showcase the harmony between the two movements (so fascinated was Vanessa Bell by Italian Classicism that she would paint in the Borghese gardens, or reprise Old Masters to hang on the walls of Charleston). Visible in woven jacquards and on silken gowns; through intarsia furs and hand-beaded tailoring, marbles become a key component in the collection’s visual language.

FENDI’s own history also appears as a primary source, refracted through Jones’ contemporary perspective: the biographies of those who model the cast used to excavate the archives for formative sketches and decoration. The velvet ribbons of a vintage bag are transposed onto a new design; Karligraphy monograms taken from Lagerfeld’s final collection beaded onto boots.

All Images: Courtesy of Fendi

Many familiar faces appear in the cast of the FENDI Spring/Summer 2021 Couture Show in Shanghai, including FENDI China Brand Ambassador Tan Zhuo, Zhao Tao, Cecilia Cheung, Muse Meng, Jike Junyi, Du Juan, Wang Wenqin, Liu Dan, Tong Chenjie, Ju XIaowen, Jin Dachuan who each inhabit glass vitrines, transformed into rooms of their own.

The guests include FENDI China Brand Spokesperson Zhao Wei, FENDI China Leathergoods Spokesperson Zhang Ruoyun, actress Shu Qi, socialites and influencers all gathered to witness the beginning of a new chapter for the Maison.