Fendi

MILAN, February 22, 2007
By Sarah Mower
Although Fendi has been steadily building up a roster of regular fashion clothing, in winter it remains the one and only place to turn for the ne plus ultra of what can be done with fur and leather. So this time there were few distractions from the coats, which Karl Lagerfeld updated with all the news from the fashion vanguard. The first had almost every keynote compressed into it: the big collar, belted waist, full skirt, and wide sleeves; the black-and-white chinchilla stripes contrasted with voluminous fox. There followed a geometric patchwork jacket—another trend—and then caped suits and the ultimate example of the shaggy goat story of the season: a spiky cream belted coat-jacket with giant shoulders, sported by Carmen Kass.

That dealt with the out-and-out luxe side of things, but Lagerfeld also knowingly played with another subject du jour: the blurring of the line between natural and synthetic. That was visible in some of the leathers, but only on second inspection: A jacket that looked like a deconstructed quilted puffer that had been stitched together with rustle-y black trash-bag plastic squares was, of course, actually something else—the rarest handmade innovation of Italy's most advanced tanneries. Otherwise, the collection, with its brightly contrasting cartridge belts and turquoise and orange platforms, read as one of Lagerfeld's quick-minded summaries of all the trends so far, from major coats to accessible accessories.