By Jiawa Liu - published
Fendi’s Spring Summer 2022 show at Milan Fashion Week was designer Kim Jones’ first physical show complete with guests and celebrities such as Jordan Alexander and Maddie Ziegler also flew in specially in for the front-row seats.
For this season, Jones summoned up the glittering disco era — when Fendi and larger-than-life celebrities were part of nightlife sensation Studio 54. Fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez’s hand-sketched Fendi logo was unearthed in the archives and his flamboyant work, so emblematic of the electric atmosphere of the time, formed the inspiration for the Spring Summer 2022 collection.
Airy floor length white kaftans featured blown-up prints of Lopez’s monochrome brushstrokes. His graphic drawings — pastel-coloured female profiles and ultra-saturated rainbow sunrise-scapes — were interpreted not only in prints, but also on intarsia leather jackets and boots and patchworked fur coats. These motifs also transformed the Peekaboo bag into portable tableaus.
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Photo: Fendi
The looks were young, sexy and playful, signalling that the world is ready for the return to nightlife. There are sensual bodycon crop tops and micro-mini dresses, languid silk suits in metallic pastels, and bikini tops that were worn playfully under jackets, blazers and silk shirts. A shearling aviator jacket was miniaturised, and paired with a matching mini short. The baguette was turned into mini wrist bags, perfect for a handsfree night of dancing. Belted fur coat, flowing silk mini dresses, and thigh-high gogo boots, the mainstays of the ’70s, were modernised with Jones’ signature touch of ease and nonchalance. Sharply tailored silk suits hung from models lightly and monogrammed silk gowns with their yards of fabric, and cinched with skinny belts were as effortlessly cool as they were glamorous.
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