Sarah Mower
September 24, 2015
Sick, although in quite a good way. That’s the only possible response to the coral leather mini-bloomer playsuit that proceeded fourth in the Fendi collection today. Coral. Leather. Bloomer. Playsuit. Such a thing could no doubt cause ridicule, offense, or even pity if viewed on the everyday street. Yet when seen with our fashion glasses on, we can instantly perceive that this garment has precisely the right number of attractive-repulsive features to qualify it as ideally avant-garde. It has the puff-shoulder sleeves, the ’80s-yet-not yoke, the gathering into a high-neck nearly-but-not-Victorian collar. While below, it provides exactly the correct amount of photographer-attractor leg exposure to satisfy girls who congregate at and outside fashion shows.
Fendi is a serious Roman fur and leather house of long standing, but recently Karl Lagerfeld and Silvia Venturini Fendi have been having some fun with it all. “There are no references,” remarked Lagerfeld as he moved through the roiling postshow throng. “Retro is over, no?”
