House evokes most iconic of parties with mirrored catwalk, white trouser suits and kaftans
Milan “looks lively again, people are out for dinner and enjoying themselves”, reports British fashion designer Kim Jones, whose Fendi show fired the starting pistol as the Milan catwalks return to full speed. “Or at least, that’s how it looks from what I can see out of the car window when I’m on my way back to the hotel after work. I’m happy that fashion week is back, but I’m still pretty much isolated. I’m double vaccinated but I can’t risk getting a positive result and not being able to work.”
Instead, his Fendi show was staged as a Studio 54 night out in miniature, albeit one with a masked and socially distanced audience. Models with slicked back hair and bronzed cheekbones stalked a mirrored catwalk, spotlights tracking them like the roving eye of a disco ball. There were white trouser suits sharp enough for Bianca Jagger and kaftans fit for a Halsonette, but Jones’s muse for the collection was the less well known Antonio Lopez, a cult fashion illustrator who partied with Andy Warhol and was briefly engaged to Jerry Hall. Lopez had strong links with Fendi, as a collaborator of Karl Lagerfeld, Jones’s predecessor at the house.