Fendi flies the flag for fur in a great pocket collection

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Sep 20, 2018

London Fashion Week may have banned fur from its catwalks, but here in the Milan season Fendi certainly is staying true to its favorite raw material, particularly in the elegant and inventive show it staged early Thursday afternoon.

“It’s precisely because others are running away from it that we embrace it. Running off to the polluting fake fur. Ugh! But as long as people wear leather or eat meat, then fur – provided the animals are decently treated, which is the case with our Fendi fur – will always be legal and wanted. Anyway, it’s easy for London to ban fur, when you don’t make your living with it!” sniffed designer Karl Lagerfeld in his private salon backstage after the show.
 
He had just sent out extraordinarily detailed mink coats; based on miniature paintings; on antique plates, and even on old carpet – the latter a stunning white and light ochre broken-pattern shaved mink town coat.

Though the theme of the collection was the enormous pockets; seen from the opening look on Adwoa Aboah, a transparent trench coat with pony express-size leather pockets, to silk mannish shirts with one-foot deep breast compartments to a leather parka/dress on Edie Campbell with multiple cartridge pouches.
 
Some garments even had as many as six pockets – for mobile, lipstick, credit card and makeup. “That way nobody can rob you, they’d have to take your whole person!” laughed Lagerfeld, sporting a beard and a Fendi logo black jacket.

No wonder Karl and Silvia Fendi christened the collection GP, meaning giant pockets.
 
Silvia crammed the catwalk with lots of great bags; continuing the see-through plastic motif with a new briefcase style tote; ore reviving the Baguette in matelassé logo leather; and offering multi-pocket calfskin overnight bags.

“I don’t really know exactly where my ideas come from, often they appear when I sleep. I never make a storyboard. Often the starting point ends up in the garbage. But you have to make a starting point or you never go anywhere,” added Karl before posing for photos with Nicki Minaj, dressed head-to-toe in a white logo Fendi sun visor, mini puffer, leggings and high heels.
 
“It suits me, no?” beamed the singer.
 
Lagerfeld’s color palette also broke new ground, notably a pinkish orange, which came after eating a lobster dish, and taking home the shell of the crustacean and demanding that his team reproduce it. “You see, it is not a cheap orange, a cheap orange, forget about it!” said Karl, after showing orange neoprene shorts; ribbed gilets; and leather tunic.
 
Leather, by the way, is another material he is fully committed to maintaining.
 
“I don’t like these vegan people who destroy a butcher’s shop. Butchers are not illegal yet, so attacking them is a kind of fascism, and I am against any kind of fascism,” insisted the German designer.