At Fendi, Inventive Layering Is Key for Fall 2024

At Fendi’s fall 2024 runway show on February 21 in Milan, duality was key. Artistic director of couture and womenswear Kim Jones presented a collection that erred on the side of the unusual, with a neutral palette full of earthy hues and an emphasis on the house’s usual leathers—with odd eccentricities and twists at every turn. Even the venue was cloaked in draped fabric, which recalled the beating heart of Roman culture. But the references to Fendi’s classic codes didn’t stop there.

Shirting was accented with twisted knit boleros; wool coats with wide lapels dominated; denim dresses were reworked with panels; and glossy, crackle-textured coats wowed. But the most exciting part of the collection was the oddly good, weird layering tactics: Sheer skirts covered in a splatter of sparkling polka dots mixed with heavyweight knits and chunky sweaters; sweater sleeves tightly fitted to one arm and stacked with chunky bangles.

Color-blocked yellow fabric wrapped around the waist to break up all the charcoals and slates and felt like a nod to the obi belt, while the first two sculpted coats mirrored the lines of Hanfu high standing collars. “I was looking at 1984 in the Fendi archives,” Jones, who often looks to Fendi’s heritage and founding family for inspiration, wrote in the show notes. “The sketches reminded me of London during that period: the Blitz Kids, the New Romantics, the adoption of workwear, aristocratic style, Japanese style.” The notes also mentioned the idea of “protection and contentment, tactility and fundamental comfort,” which manifested in thigh-high leather boots; knit hoods; inverted sweaters; and thick, glossy leather skirts. Those details—Baguettes as clutches, big gold chain necklaces, stacks of bangles—felt exciting and refreshing in a world where runways have recently turned to a more quiet approach to accessorizing.

The latter half of the collection presented prints of Roman statues (pulled straight from the Galleria Borghese!) of women and goddesses on silky shift dresses, intarsia sweaters, sheer skirts, and diaphanous blouses and pants. The unexpected prints served as a nice contrast to all those dynamic textiles shrouded in layer upon layer upon layer.

Jones took direct inspiration from the Fendi clan for all those everyday shapes. “I remember when I first met Silvia Venturini Fendi, she was wearing a very chic utilitarian suit—almost a Safari suit,” Jones wrote in the show notes. “That fundamentally shaped my view of what Fendi is: it is how a woman dresses that has something substantial to do. And she can have fun while doing it.”