Kim Jones to Debut First Collection for Fendi in January

MILAN — The wait for Kim Jones’ debut at Fendi has been cut back by a few weeks.

The British designer will unveil a couture collection for Fendi on Jan. 27 in Paris during the city’s Haute Couture Week. In September, when Jones was named Fendi’s artistic director of couture and women’s wear collections, the Rome-based luxury house said his first collection would bow in February.

Silvia Venturini Fendi, artistic director of accessories and men’s wear collections, and her daughter Delfina Delettrez Fendi, jewelry creative director, will also be involved in designing the couture collection.

Whether the show will accommodate guests is still to be defined, given the uncertainties related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the possible restrictions to be enforced by the French government, but the collection will once again be presented at Palais Brongniart.

The January event is a first on several levels. It will mark Jones’ first women’s and first couture collection ever and it will also be the first time Fendi presents a spring couture collection. The house has in the past only created couture collections for fall and dubbed “haute fourrure.”

In July 2015, Karl Lagerfeld designed the first Fendi couture collection, which also marked the German designer’s 50th anniversary at the Roman house. That show was held at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.

In July the following year, Fendi celebrated its 90th anniversary with a couture show of Lagerfeld’s designs at the Trevi Fountain, a first for the Baroque monument, and with an exhibition at the company’s then-new headquarters at the stately Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana. Fendi staged the spectacular show at the iconic Roman landmark, whose restoration the house supported, with a catwalk placed on the water and the closure of four neighboring streets.

In 2017, the couture show returned to Paris at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. In 2018, what was to be the last couture show by Lagerfeld, who died in February 2019, was held at Palais Brongniart.

In July 2019, the couture show returned to the Italian capital, staged at the Temple of Venus and Rome, which Fendi helped restore with a donation of 2.5 million euros. The collection, designed by Silvia Venturini Fendi and her team, paid homage to Lagerfeld with a collection, named “The Dawn of Romanity,” comprising 54 looks — one for each year of the designer at Fendi.

In 2020, Fendi did not hold a couture show.

Jones remains at the creative helm of Dior Men.

A veteran of Fendi parent French luxury group LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Jones came on board in 2011 as men’s artistic director at Louis Vuitton. He helped ignite the luxury streetwear phenomenon with the landmark 2017 collaboration with Supreme, the cult New York skatewear brand.

Since moving over to Dior Men in 2018, Jones has done collections with fine artists Daniel Arsham, Kaws and Amoako Boafo, the surfwear maven Shawn Stussy, and Air Jordan. The latter yielded one of the most sought-after sneakers of 2020, the Air Jordan 1 OG Dior limited-edition.

Earlier this month, Jones presented his Dior men’s pre-fall collection online, featuring models walking against an intergalactic backdrop conceived by Thomas Vanz, a French director known for his spectacular renderings of deep space, against a looping soundtrack of Deee-lite. The designer tapped Kenny Scharf, whose cartoon-like paintings are steeped in sci-fi, to lend his colorful touch to the line.

See Also:

With Fendi Move, Kim Jones Expands His Impact

Gabriela Hearst and Chloé: A New Purpose for Both

When Fendi Conquered the Great Wall of China

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