Virginia Woolf, Bella Hadid and Kim Jones walk into a room. This is the vibe Kim Jones brought with his highly anticipated debut for Fendi. After a year in which fashion has not unfairly taken the place of the last wheel of the carriage, the imagination of the new artistic director of the Italian house gives us something to get excited about again.
After leading Dior Men for three years and completing his tenure at Louis Vuitton, Jones took his transition from men’s to women’s fashion seriously. With direct references to Woolf’s Orlando, Jones’ clothes blur the boundaries of gender. This is the famous novel, in which the protagonist changes in the middle of the story from male to female in a mysterious way.
Jones’ ten-minute performance was a dizzying succession of gowns and costumes, book-shaped bags and quotes from the novel embroidered onto accessories, with shades of grey, silver, black and white dominating. Since his goal was to design a collection in contrast to the times we live in, the slow and relaxed walking of the models was wonderfully symbolic.
A recurring pattern, inspired by the marbled books that Woolf published with her husband Leonard Woolf, for the Hogarth Press, was prevalent in the last appearances. Notably, Fendi is also presenting a unique exhibition of rare Woolf books and manuscripts to accompany Jones’ clothing collection.
The show’s impressive cast walked through an intricate, glass maze, with Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Christy Turlington and Bella Hadid sharing the stage in a historic reunion of the legendary models. The show was closed by actress Demi Moore, a personal friend of Jones, as well as Leonetta Fendi and Delfina Delettrez, daughters of Silvia Venturini Fendi.
To further emphasize the importance of fashion and in particular its inherent androgynous fluidity, the performance culminated with a few lines from Woolf’s biographical novel: ‘Little things as they seem, clothes have, they say, a more important task than keeping us warm. They change our view of the world and the world’s view of us.”
