This season, Kim Jones and the craftspeople of the FENDI ateliers continue to approach the couture collection as an inner-world palimpsest, where iterations, transparencies and techniques of the past go to make up the present and move subtly into the future.

“It’s a celebration of the ateliers and the craftspeople who realise these garments, the intense work and emotional commitment to each piece that exists for both maker and wearer, and how the intimate traditions of the couture are both living and breathing. The collection is an inner world made into an external one – both figuratively and literally – with a sense of underwear becoming eveningwear.”
Kim Jones


The flou is concentrated on and in the form of the dress, yet an idea of the ensemble is also revived in a new sense, with a notion of purposeful flux and flexibility replacing impenetrability. In a similar vein, yarn in the form of the extraordinarily delicate Japanese mohair, Fuuga – the finest gauge to be found in the world – is worked on a frame and becomes the apotheosis of crochet in gossamer lightness more akin to lace in cascading gowns.An artful ‘sprezzatura’ of done and undone permeates all: a nonchalance and purposeful imperfection to achieve more human perfection. This is clothing that is not just about being looked at but about being lived in.

Draping and tying on the body, the exploration of lace and its placement, the hand-pleating motifs, together with an elevation of exceptional knit, give a sense of the sculptural and organic while at the same time displaying virtuoso‘sprezzatura’.