Inside Fendi's Dream World

If you thought that Fendi was a bag that came in ubiquitous beige and brown colors, displaying the signature “FF” logo, think again.

The Roman house’s Spring/Summer 2014 collection, which showed in Milan on Thursday afternoon, featured a dreamy range of sherbet colors and fluorescent pastels, along with darker blues, and graphic black-and-white combinations.

Fendi's Creative Director, Karl Lagerfeld, called the organza-rich collection “easy dreamwear,” and it was a collection one could surely dream of owning. Materials flowed down the runway in a dream-like manner. Models sported funky black bobs, and came adorned with furry earpieces designed as a collaboration with the young jeweler (and Fendi family member) Delfina Delettrez Fendi. They carried fluffy bags, similar to the Muppet-like accessories last season. Or were they poodles?

The collection’s first look was a dress with an easy cut, made up of a series of pinkish layers -- beginning with a redish-pink color around the shoulders, changing layer-by-layer to paler shades, and ending above the knee in a wispy cut. There was a one-shouldered, ankle-length version of this play on layered pink, in which the layers slanted sideways in an asymmetrical fashion, like sashes on a beauty queen.

Sheer panels of color followed in a dress featuring two pale orange sheets, which ran from the collar bone to the mid-ankle. A loose-fitting, almost Roman dress reflected what Lagerfeld described in the show notes as a “Roman typeface of design.”

As the color contrasts became bolder, the collection looked more graphic. There was a pink-and-red see-thru jacket of sorts. One black t-shirt-style top was matched with a layered gray mini-skirt. Bold versus elegance. Graphics, which looked like a play on the house’s Zucca print, decorated several pieces.

One silver mini was paired with a graphically sexy red-and-sheer short-sleeved top, where the flesh contrasted with the red triangular patterns. Lagerfeld also played with lines, cutting down sheer organza skirts that looked like an undergarment from yesteryear and revealed granny-sized knickers below.

In the show notes, the designer said that he was poking fun at digital language -- and was inspired by the modern, “informatic” world. Or did he mean digital? “I love to use in a funny way words from the visual web communication world. Very 21st century,” he said.

He talked about monochrome color-blocks and an absolute positioning of the Fendi image: contrasts with visual harmony.

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Liza Foreman

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