8 posts tagged "Silvia Venturini Fendi"
The Fendi Baguette Heads For The Web
The Fendi Baguette birthday celebrations aren’t ending anytime soon. As part of the label’s 15th anniversary festivities for the iconic bag, Fendi opens its online pop-up shop today, making the Baguette available for the first time on its e-commerce boutique at Fendi.com. (It’ll be there through January 2013.) Visitors to the pop-up can find everything from the new Geometrica Baguette (a white and blue striped bag created for the pop-up, only 100 total available) to foulards with Karl Lagerfeld’s Baguette sketches to the Baguette needlepoint embroidery kit (a.k.a. a create-your-own Baguette kit). As part of today’s pop launch, artist Maurizio Anzeri created a one-of-a-kind Baguette for the Fendi archives and an accompanying portrait of Silvia Venturini Fendi, called The Art of Embroidery, which makes its exclusive debut here on Style.com.
Fendi In The Future
When one door closes, another one opens. Filmmaker Mel Bles applied that old adage quite literally to her new short movie for Fendi, titled Arrival, reflecting the optimism of Silvia Venturini Fendi’s latest menswear collection. In a lab-like setting, a door opens and a male model (clad in Fendi Spring 2013, which makes its runway debut tonight) walks out and then disappears from the frame just as quickly. According to the label, “The video materializes the dichotomy of the collection, its futurism: the point of arrival, here, is also the point of departure.” Style.com has an exclusive first look at the collection and the film.
Angelos Bratis Takes Italy’s Who Is On Next Prize
Each July, fashion—the made-in-Italy kind, at least—moves south to Rome. The destination? Altaroma fashion week, Italy’s answer to haute couture, where acting President Silvia Venturini Fendi and Vogue Italia‘s Franca Sozzani pick the womenswear winners of Italy’s annual Who is On Next young designer competition. (The men’s half of Who’s Next was held last month at Pitti in Florence.)
The prestigious international jury, including Suzy Menkes, Saks Fifth Avenue’s Terron Schaefer and Harvey Nichols’ Averyl Oates, spent last Saturday in a sizzling-hot Rome reviewing the work of seven ready-to-wear labels and four accessories lines for the seventh edition of the prize, which rewards winners with a feature shoot by one of Vogue Italia‘s photographers and a fashion-show slot during Milan fashion week in late September. (Yoox.com, Mercedes-Benz, and Alcantara offered their own supplemental prize.)
Angelos Bratis (left), a Greek designer producing his collection in Italy, won first prize for his sleek, bias scarf-cut pieces inset with stars, while second prize went to Stella Jean, a Caribbean-Italian designer born in Rome, who created Euro-African mix of crisp pinstripe shirts and wax prints in modernized fifties hourglass shapes. Alessio Spinelli, whose eponymous shoe collection debuted in Rome this year, won the accessories prize for the innovative details of his Neon, collection like stiletto sandals with glow-in-the-dark-edged soles, or interchangeable shocking satin laces. Marta Ferri, who did a bright, floral-filled remix of fifties glamour, received the jury’s special mention.
“It’s really amazing to participate in a competition like this,” said Bratis, who spoke during a private evening tour of the Vatican with the jury and journalists assembled for the prize, a rare treat negotiated by Silvia Fendi using all her intra-Roman connections. “All of a sudden you’re in a room with some of the people who you have always dreamed of showing your collection to. So there’s 15 minutes to explain what you’re doing. And then you realize that they understand everything and that an explanation really isn’t necessary.”
Meet Corrado Di Biase, Paris’ Next Designer To Watch
Puglia native Corrado di Biase started his career ten years ago designing shoes for Fendi in Rome. And after clocking time in the shoe departments of some of Europe’s best houses—including YSL (where the Tribute was introduced his second season) and John Galliano—he struck out on his own. Di Biase returned to Rome last season to present his first couture collection as a special guest of Sylvia Venturini Fendi, the newly appointed president of Rome’s Haute Couture syndicate. This season, di Biase is debuting his first ready-to-wear collection at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on March 1.
How did you get your start?
After my studies, my dream was to go to Paris and do ready-to-wear. I sent a ton of letters—everyone said it was easy to get an internship there, but it wasn’t. Valentino and Fendi were the only two truly international houses in Rome at the time, so I sent my CV there. Frida Giannini was designing bags for Fendi at the time, but she had no room on her team, so she passed me along to the shoe design team. So I didn’t choose shoes, they chose me.
How does shoe design inform your process for ready-to-wear?
Not to sound pretentious, but when you are a shoe designer you can design anything. There’s not the same range of possibilities with bags—you can make them in precious leathers or nylon. Shoes require a special mix of technique and creativity. If you pick up on clothing details, they have to be concentrated on such a small space. And then there’s the practical side—you have to be able to walk in them (even if at Galliano we do crazy shoes just for the show).
You have to have a beautiful object and a proportion that is really, really perfect—it’s almost like watch-making; all the pieces have to work together perfectly. When you buy clothing from H&M and you put it with an Alaïa belt and a beautiful jacket, no one knows it’s H&M. Shoes are a different story. To look beautiful, you have to have beautiful shoes. And it gives confidence like no other piece of clothing. It’s amazing when you do shoes; you realize how much they can change a person.
Knowing shoes makes things easier, because it makes you more of a perfectionist. You look at all the little details. My coat with a whalebone shell (pictured) was the first thing I did for the collection, and I instantly zoomed in on the stitching and zippers because the slightest variation jumps out at you. You see everything. Continue Reading “Meet Corrado Di Biase, Paris’ Next Designer To Watch” »
A Walk To Remember
Arguably, the opportunity to be in a room with Alec Baldwin is, in this day and age, enough to coax anyone out on a rainy night. Now add to that a good cause (New York’s Coalition for the Homeless) and an auction that includes works by Francesco Clemente, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons, James Rosenquist, and Silvia Venturini Fendi. Yes, you read that last one correctly. Artwalk 2010—hosted by Baldwin, Richard Gere, and Carey Lowell, and honoring Rosenquist—does primarily draw from visual artists for its annual for-charity auction, but since Fendi has signed on as this year’s sponsor, the house matriarch (and accessories designer) has ponied up, too. Hitting the block will be a made-to-order Selleria Peekaboo bag (pictured), customizable from the leather or skin down to the stitching and lining, in 37 color variations. No wonder Isabella Rossellini, Selita Ebanks, Heather Marks, and Olympia Scarry are all expected at tonight’s event. Want to join them? Tickets are still available at www.artwalkny.org, where you can also bid on auction items.