Fashion houses and designers often come back again and again on some inspirations they explored in previous collections. And so it happened that Fendi tried to rediscover in its Haute Couture A/W 19 collection, the cosmatesque moods first explored in its S/S 13 ready-to-wear collection (a theme that also appeared in Valentino's Haute Couture A/W 2015 collection).
As you may remember from that previous post about tha collection, the decorative work defined as "Cosmatesque" is an elaborate geometric style of stonework mainly employed in Medieval Italy. The name of the style comes from the Cosmati, the Rome-based family workshop of marble craftsmen (12th-13th century) who first came up with these forms of decorations made using differently sized and shaped pieces of stones and glass.
In Rome you will find beautiful examples in the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, San Clemente, Santa Maria in Cosmedin (its name derives from the Greek "kosmidion", meaning ornament; its floors with infinite geometrical compositions were probably made by marble master Magister Paulus, who preceded the Cosmatesque school), and in the four Stanze di Raffaello in the Palace of the Vatican and the pavements of the Sistine Chapel.
These intricately composed floors create mesmerising geometric forms with triangles, squares, parallelograms and circles made out of different stones and materials including marble, granite, porphyry and ceramics.
Fendi's show was a tribute to the late Karl Lagerfeld, who joined the company 54 years ago (hence the 54 looks on the runway), and therefore combined one of his inspirations, Viennese Secessionism, with Silvia Venturini Fendi's Roman heritage.
The show took place at the Temple of Venus and Roma in the Italian capital – it was actually not so difficult for Fendi to snatch this amazing spot as the fashion house is currently supporting its restoration (that's why the house was also given the permission to have its post-collection dinner there).
The designs on the runway, among them coats, tops, wool suits with wide boot-leg pants, dresses and voluminously grand ballgowns, were covered in prints of marbles, while squares of fabrics, tulle and fur were used to create geometrical motifs inspired by the cosmatesque floors. Embroideries of plants hinting at the vegetation growing through the monuments provided a variation, while the '70s bowl hairstyles created an anachronism.
You may like and approve or dislike and disappove of furs, but it was clear the house went through some painstakingly complex intarsia motifs to recreate the geometric patterns of the cosmati, making furs extremely light.
Some of the coats were reversible and there were cinematic echoes of Fendi's pieces for Silvana Mangano in Luchino Visconti's 1975 movie Conversation Piece, but Roman architectures and antiquities prevailed, probably these are the only references that will remain stable for the Italian fashion house. As it moves on after Lagerfeld's death, Fendi is indeed gradually reducing its use of animal skins and, for a house specialised in leather and fur, that's an important step that may radically transform its future collections.
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