On Wednesday in Milan, Silvia Venturini Fendi unveiled a motley collection for Fendi, bursting with flowers and references to the 1990s. The exercise is clever: taking what, until yesterday, was considered “cheap” elastic cords, adjustable straps, flimsy windbreaker zippers and elevating it to the status of a new chic ornament on Calais lace “made in China.” Luxury has always loved recycling the banal since the man from Toledo, provided it’s wrapped in a carefully crafted narrative and staged with theatrical flair. It was as if we were laying the first stone of a memorial dedicated to the victims of stoning.

This is anti-fashion, a kind of “Haute Ready-to-Wear Couture” for shapeless school smocks worn three days in a row, destined, with Micron’s blessing, to become the uniform of Catholic institutions. As for trousers, we’re talking about sweatpants desperately trying to slip into the category of wardrobe “essentials.” 

To hybridize, to shift, to imagine a garment that surprises without shouting it out loud. Yet in the face of chromatic hysteria and the heavy-handed winks of Western fashion, such subtlety feels almost like sabotage or worse, a spectacular misfire.

The lordly luxury proclaims itself the inventor of cool by turning a drawstring into a fashion talisman. But perhaps true rebellion would simply be wearing whatever is lying around in the closet, without seeking approval from a front row filled with “Frontanel” types who don’t understand a thing.

For in the end, fashion chases an ideal of desirability. Fendi, on the other hand, seems content to stay seated on the sofa, in a torn K-Way, indifferent to the show. And perhaps that is where it loses the game because this collection will be a flop on the runway, but a hit in stores, if the prices hover around Zara’s.

FM