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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p>\nWhen you\u2019re born into one of the world\u2019s most renowned fashion dynasties and raised in an 18th-century Roman villa, good taste is about as optional as oxygen. Fendi\u2019s creative director Silvia Venturini Fendi, the granddaughter of the high fashion house\u2019s founders Adele and Emilio, can attest to this. As a young girl she was forbidden to put up gaudy posters in her room, because the walls were already plastered with frescos. When she asked if the family could get a sofa for the living room, citing the stiffness of the wooden armchairs that she sat on to watch her cartoons, her mother cried, aghast: \u201cNo, are you joking? Don\u2019t you know who designed those?\u201d<\/p>\n
And so she learned about modernist design genius Alvar Aalto (she treasures the chairs to this day). Later in life, when she began visiting museums and galleries, she\u2019d recognize major works of art with a gasp \u2013 because similar pieces used to hang in her dining room. <\/p>\n
Signora Fendi\u2019s early immersion into a world of beautiful objects (as head of accessories at Fendi she\u2019s turned out a fair few herself, including the bestselling Baguette and Peekaboo bags) has imbued her with a deep appreciation of the design process. It\u2019s a passion that in the past two years has come to the fore \u2013 publicly and spectacularly \u2013 thanks to the series of events, installations and performances that she\u2019s staged in collaboration with Design Miami. <\/p>\n
Such interdisciplinary initiatives are far from unusual in today\u2019s fashion industry, with its global, increasingly corporate brands keen to impress cynics with their philanthropy and cultural savvy. Though Fendi\u2019s work with Design Miami started as sponsorship, the events that followed have been innovative, collaborative, and, above all, have offered something different.<\/p>\n
Last December, for Fendi\u2019s third and latest outing at Design Miami, there came Modern Primitives<\/em>, in collaboration with Aranda\/Lasch \u2013 an award-winning young architecture practice. Fendi slung luxurious, but pleasingly Neanderthal throws, across elemental furniture pieces created by the studio.<\/p>\n\u201cI found the chair very primitive, as a tiger is,\u201d says Fendi. \u201cIt reminded me of a cave, and I so I thought I\u2019d use fur, which is the most primitive material for a garment. And it was interesting that this block, this chair, could become, in a very organic way, something very soft.”<\/p>\n
The next element of the project was down to the visitors at Design Miami, who were encouraged to create designs of their own on an iPad in the installation space over the three days of the exhibition. Aranda\/Lasch, together with a Fendi craftsman, then worked to enact the audience\u2019s ideas.<\/p>\n
For Fendi this project, as with all her work with Design Miami, was about more than stamping her family name across exciting new work in design. \u201cI don\u2019t want it to be like a big company coming and sponsoring someone,\u201d she says. \u201cThings come up in a very natural and organic way. It\u2019s friends working on the same project with the same enthusiasm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fendi sees herself as more of an artisan than a fashion designer, so the spectacle of designer-makers creating on the fly resonates deeply with her. And she wants it to resonate with us too. \u201cI think young people need to understand why there is this big difference in price between an Ikea chair and one that\u2019s handmade by a designer in a limited edition,\u201d says Fendi. \u201cThey have lost the history of things. For me, it\u2019s normal. Living in Rome, I still can go to a shirtmaker and have my shirt made by hand, with a monogram. But there are other people in other countries\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n
Photography: Benny Horne
\nFashion: Anthony Unwin
\nWords: Adam Welch<\/p>\n
A full version of this article first appeared in <\/em>Wonderland Issue 25, Feb\/March 2011<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How Silvia Venturini Fendi happened upon a winning collaborative formula with architects Aranda\/Lasch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9418],"tags":[261,414,90,412,417,411,416,413,415],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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