“A biography beginning in the year 1500 and continuing to the present day, called Orlando. Vita; only with a change about from one sex to the other.” These very words were penned by Virginia Woolf in her diary about her 1928 novel Orlando – essentially a love letter to Woolf’s lover Vita Sackville-West, which imagined her as a gender-fluid, time-travelling English nobleman. Forward-thinking and pioneering, it remains a cult classic in trans literary canon to this day.

And now, inspired by the novel as well as the Bloomsbury set (the influential west London literary cohort), Fendi has dropped a monochrome limited edition capsule couture collection, drawing upon themes presented during Kim Jones’ Spring/Summer 2021 couture debut.

A fusion of 1920s liberated British sensibility and historic Roman grandeur, fluid androgyny and sweeping romance go under the lens with floor-skimming draped gowns, wool silk tailoring and crisp cotton shirting modelled by big-hitters Bella Hadid and Lila Grace Moss. Elsewhere, dainty ballerina slippers are embossed with beaded monograms, knee-high satin boots run amok, and a new collection of baroque pearl jewellery – frozen in resin and embossed with rhinestones – adds high glamour. Limited-edition versions of the iconic Baguette and Peekaboo styles see the bags trimmed in luxurious pearls or even rendered in prints inspired by the Bloomsbury Group’s Sussex home of Charleston House. Positively dreamy.

Discover more at fendi.com and exclusively in FENDI New Bond Street store