Fendi menswear at women's F/W 2011-12.

Fendi   

Fall-Winter 2011-12

During Milan fashion week for the Spring-Summer 2003 show season, critics of the esteemed Italian house expressed their doubts on the exact viability of the Fendi aesthetic—saying that the maison is for the most part an outlet for Karl Largafeld’s need for wild experimentation.  In that collection, to the chagrin of an audience expecting commercial success, Karl re-imagined the Fendi woman as a gladiatorial, mythological creature dripping with armaments and glistening chainmail.  The ready-to-wear was left derailed and Fendi’s following from that point, it seemed, was predicated on the innovative fur and handbag business that drove the company profile to sartorial acclaim years prior.  Karl would soon bounce back with a more practical silhouette for the proceeding fall collection, communicating with critics and buyers alike that a rounded motif and technologically articulated form would be not just a fleeting show-season concept, but would remain the driving force for Fendi’s ready-to-wear.  That Fall-Winter collection?  A formidable demonstration of how fur can be worn and can take the forms of non-investment pieces; minks shaved down and cut directly into spandex and plastic, jackets that resembled perforated shower curtains with plugs of fur exposed out of them, and full length rabbit/beaver/mink coats worn frivolously as blankets.  A Fendi fur was no longer a stand-alone accoutrement but a unique fashion piece boasting a secondary function—it keeps you warm, grates your block of parmesan cheese, and seconds as a parachute.  Since F/W 2003-04, Fendi has delivered extraordinary Fall-Winter collections.  The nostalgic art-deco collection for F/W 2004-05 seemed to be the strongest point of Karl’s new approach to fur—the proposition of a fur as a space-age second skin, lining high-gloss metallic overcoats was money in the bank as far as he was concerned.  But after that, Karl paired down his slick rigor and focused on a more abbreviated silhouette, introducing a less-composed statement that focused primarily on the ease and grace of sultry dishabille dressing.  Hard-edged modernity out, quirk and primness in.  That is, of course, until this morning when Karl reunited both scopes for the first time in a long while.  The end-product for Fall-Winter 2011-12?  A 90’s recherché collection that bridged the organic neutrality of his most recent outings with the enunciated efficiency of the Fendi archives.  But don’t go all 90s Miu Miu on me just yet.  For next fall, your furs are utilitarian but appear sober and practical.  They are sportif but worn conventionally.  Perhaps Karl’s re-adoption of a conflict of opposites is necessary—but I say anything to make us forget the saccharine lackadaisical oeuvre of this past spring-summer.  The Fendi of then is now again the Fendi of then, now.  You follow?