Fendi A/W 2018

Scening setting: the catwalk space at the brand’s HQ was transformed into an airport baggage hall complete with conveyor belt and clacking destination signage. A Fendi package holiday awaits and your bags are already packed. In fact, so much of Italian menswear started as family owned luggage makers. Both Prada and Gucci began life this way and Fendi was once a fur and leather shop on Rome’s Via del Plebiscito more than 90 years ago. Pieces from the brand’s archives took their turn around the mock arrivals hall as models marched to their next stop to a pounding, disco beat. 

Best in show: the collection took the iconic double F logo, Pequin stripe and Fendi yellow and took them on a trip. With fur, both intarsia and gheronatura techniques were used on sportier shapes. The label’s exquisite workmanship is rebooted for a millennial moment. A/W 2018 was comfy. Lounge suits, wool trench coats, padded cagoules – the whole collection was reversible so you’ll only need carry-on luggage next season. What a boon. 
 
Team work: the label has made a thing of artist collaborations for the last two seasons. In the stores now are shirts and accessories featuring drawings by the British artist Sue Tilley from S/S 2018. Last season, the illustrator John Booth worked with the brand to create a range of colourful abstract portraits that were turned into bags, accessories and prints. For A/W 2018, the Instagram collagist @hey_reilly mashed recognisable elements of the brand’s graphic DNA into a witty printed tapestry. The brand also celebrated its collaboration with Rimowa, which launched last November, with models wheeling hard case suitcases down the runway.

INFORMATION

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans