Fendi S/S 2018

Mood board: The S/S 2018 Fendi show was staged on a set modelled after Fendi’s HQ in Rome’s Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana. At the foot of the catwalk were two mock office lift doors from which the models exited in a series of eclectic executive looks. Does anyone remember when work started at 9 and finished at 5? Here Silvia Venturini Fendi presented a surreal take on the dichotomy between the corporate and the casual. This resulted in a series of sports/formalwear looks in sheer, logo printed fabrics…the pairing of shorts and tailored jackets, slingback loafers with running socks, neckties worn with everything. Tops and bottoms, fronts and backs were also purposefully unmatched. The show notes amusingly referred to the modern meeting scenario as the Skype look. Being ready from the waist up never felt so subversive.

Teamwork: British artist Sue Tilley is known to many as best friend to the late Leigh Bowery and frequent subject of the painter Lucian Freud. She is the subject of his 1995 Benefits Supervisor Sleeping. Tilley is the second guest artist to collaborate on drawings and prints with Fendi Mens, after illustrator John Booth. Booth’s colourful doodles were seen across a number of accessories and quickly became synonymous with the brand. Tilley’s cartoonish drawings of the banal, from antique keys, leaky bathroom taps to banana peel, embody the prevailing eccentricity of the label.

Finishing touches: There has been a proclivity for the palest of pinks across Milan. From Ferragamo to Prada and Versace it is the standout colour of the season so far. Fendi used it to set off the 1950s palette of beiges, sand and greens. Standout pieces were the delicately branded gauze suiting, pale pink leather and technical poly bomber, and an 80s ski jacket with asymmetric pink stripe.