Silvia Fendi on Responding to a World in Crisis

Last year was, by anyone’s standards, a dark one: terrorism, Brexit, Trump, the rise of the ‘alt-right’ and the death of multiple culture stars... Naturally fashion designers who, like other creative practitioners, often act as social barometers, produced collections that reflected the cultural mood – some chose escapism with clothes inspired by partying, while others turned nostalgia and employed traditional crafts. Silvia Fendi did neither. The Italian designer responded with a fun and unapologetically positive collection that popped with bright colours and eye-catching logos.

“Fendi’s A/W17 collection is like an optimistic take on the future that can help us facing all the changes and challenges going on in the world,” Fendi tells us. “Yet, we have to look forward without forgetting the fundamental values of the past like trust, friendship, ‘LOVE’ and ‘HOPE’. That is why I have chosen to use universal key words, inspired from a vademecum of Ernest Hemingway, such as ‘LOVE’, ‘TRY’, ‘HOPE’, ‘LISTEN’ that comprise the Fendi Vocabulary: very simple and common words that yet in their simplicity have a very important meaning that is going to be forever and that can help us in difficult moments.”

Here, we present a new film from Fendi which captures the spirit of this ‘optimistic’ collection, which is now available at Dover Street Market London. Shot in the Canary island of Lanzarote, the film stars Nicolas Ripoll – a model that Fendi describes as having a “very good and positive energy, just like the collection”. “I wanted to highlight the bond between nature and the city, between humanity and nature,” she explains. “That’s why I chose to shoot the video in Lanzarote. Its lunar and savage, yet almost technological landscapes were the perfect place to represent this contrast between humanity and nature.”