5 Things To Know About Fendi’s Lightness-Focused SS23 Couture Show
Kim Jones’s spring/summer 2023 haute couture collection for Fendi kicked off the countdown to his predecessor Karl Lagerfeld’s Met Gala. Anders Christian Madsen was there.
Victor VIRGILE/Getty Images1/5It was about lightness
“Lightness,” Kim Jones said in a preview the day before his Fendi haute couture show. “Lightness in colour, lightness in fabric, lightness in layering.” His message came through loud and clear in a collection of wispy, silvery evening slip dresses in dusty pastels and metallics, which employed all the intricacies of haute couture but never allowed them to make the silhouette – or indeed weight of the garment – heavy.
Victor VIRGILE/Getty Images2/5Baillie Walsh directed it
The collection was presented in a small almond-shaped optical white spaceship structure built inside the Palais Brongniart. The production marked Jones’s second collaboration this season with director Baillie Walsh, who also worked on his Dior men’s show a week ago. “I went to the ABBA Voyage he did. It’s so amazing with the avatars. I said, Baillie, you need to be doing fashion shows,” Jones said.
Victor VIRGILE/Getty Images3/5Materials were not as they seemed
Jones said he had drawn on his predecessor Karl Lagerfeld’s affinity for materials that aren’t what they seem. Putting it into practice, he sheathed dresses in lace that was actually made from leather, or covered entire creations in tiny, tiny beads that looked like laminated fabric in the bright white light of Baillie’s spaceship. Notably, Jones evaded the use of fur that has historically characterised Fendi.
Victor VIRGILE/Getty Images4/5It was inspired by climbing
In another interpretation of lightness, Delfina Delettrez Fendi created jewellery inspired by her personal love of climbing in the Dolomites. “I wanted to work with all the accessories and all the mechanics and metallics from climbing. Not social climbing!” she quipped. “Technical hooks and shapes rounded to make them more feminine and organic.” Sculptural and tactile, her silver pieces immaculately captured the lightness of the collection.
Victor VIRGILE/Getty Images5/5It kicked off the countdown to Karl’s Met Gala
The show marked Jones’s final haute couture proposal before May’s Met Gala, which will be dedicated to Karl Lagerfeld. Along with the late couturier’s close friend Lady Amanda Harlech, who was by Jones’s side in the Fendi studio, he is gearing up for what could be the house’s most prominent red-carpet adventure to date, and an opportunity for the lightness of this season’s dresses to shine on an even bigger stage.
