Fendi creates work wear with a difference

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jun 19, 2017

How does one dress the decision makers of today, and tomorrow? It’s a question Milan designers have been tussling with all weekend, and one of the most novel approaches came from Silvia Fendi.
 

Fendi, a Rome-based company founded on fur, has never really been a powerhouse in summer fashion for men. This path-breaking spring 2018 collection, where Roman vacation influences met high-tech fashion, should change that.
 
Those who have spent a summer in the Italian capital know how much young locals love a cotton Madras print. So, la Silvia took the pattern and used it to make see-through, lightweight nylon suits. The result was playful, cool (literally as the nylon breathes), beguiling and totally contemporary. All composed in optimistic dusty pastels, all somehow very Silicon Valley.

“It’s executive attire. Taking traditional codes for executives like suspenders, ties and loafers but mix with a more relaxed attitude. Times have changed things very fast. You can have a 16-year-old CEO of a start-up that becomes a billion-dollar company in a couple of minutes. So attitudes change and codes are subverted,” she argued.

 

Mark Twain famously wrote that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco, which made Fendi’s selection of – feather-light nylon trench coats topped with second skin suede arms and torso seem just right. Keep warm in springs chills.
 
“It allows a man to work from the poolside, restaurant or home,” smiled Silvia Fendi, a granddaughter of the founders and Fendi’s menswear creative director.
 
Signora Fendi also attached mini leather Fendi plaques on many garments – whether postman’s jerkins or Eisenhower jackets. Fendi, which breached the magic target of one billion euros in annual sales last year, has based its success on accessories. For next spring, Silvia’s Big Idea are totes, purses and even Peekaboo bags for men, starring hand-painted drawings of cups, saucers, gazelles, banana skins and telephones by Sue Tilley, the muse of Lucian Freud. Her nickname was Big Sue, these clothes will be just right for Big Sur.