Fendi presented its Spring/Summer 2023 Couture collection by Kim Jones at Paris Fashion Week.
This season the Artistic Director of Couture and Womenswear wanted to focus on the techniques and craft of couture, combining it with the lightness, fluidity and attitude of today. “It’s a celebration of the ateliers and the craftspeople who realise these garments, the intense work and emotional commitment to each piece that exists for both maker and wearer, and how the intimate traditions of the couture are both living and breathing.” Said Kim Jones. “The collection is an inner world made into an external one – both figuratively and literally – with a sense of underwear becoming eveningwear.”
The idea of underwear becoming evening wear meant a collection of light, feminine pieces that had a sense of sophistication. Traditional couture techniques were used in new ways with new materials to create a send of the old meeting the new.
Each look had a softness and luminosity about it, taking inspiration from undergarments but giving them a sense of sophistication. Winged sleeves are often detachable; lingerie is designed as part of a look, often in the same intensely embroidered and unexpected fabrications, even when invisible; coats mirror the intense embroidery of their matching dresses on the inside yet can be reversed; ‘apron’ wrap skirts can also be worn as stoles.
Draping and tying on the body, the exploration of lace and its placement, the hand-pleating motifs, together with an elevation of exceptional knit, give a sense of the sculptural and organic while at the same time displaying virtuoso ‘sprezzatura’. Even utilitarian climbing carabiners are remade as luxury sculptural objects, to tether materials nonchalantly.
The idea was to create couture that can really be worn, something we have seen a lot of this season, perhaps a sign of the times and the reality of customer expectations today.
