Fendi celebrates 100 years in 2025, and as it prepares for the big celebrations, we visited the archive that preserves the history (and the lives) of a brand that contributed to the birth of that myth called Made in Italy. An almost all-female company projected into the future, but with its feet firmly rooted in the present
by Domenico Casoria
Last June, during Milan Men’s Fashion Week, Silvia Venturini Fendi sent a collection down the catwalk that concealed her personal memories intertwined with those of the maison between the folds of the clothes. It is a traditional yet innovative work that looks at fashion as a mirror of the present. Because the Fendi archive is a place where one does not only talk about bags and furs. The one located inside the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana – which the Romans call Colosseo Quadrato – is not just a repository of leathers and fabrics. It is the scientific treatise of a brand that has been able to read itself inside and that, precisely for this reason, has well in mind the road to follow – a road, however, full of bends that must be tackled with a clear head.
The Fendi archive
Why so many curves? If Silvia Venturini Fendi’s creative direction had never been in question since the 1990s, i.e., since the fashion house began with men, the same could not have been said of Kim Jones. He took over from Karl Lagerfeld in 2020 and has since been in charge of the women’s collections without hitting the mark. Lagerfeld reigned supreme in the Fendi galaxy for more than fifty years with the support of his five sisters – Paola, Franca, Carla, Alda, and Anna – the brand’s second generation and daughters of the founders.
In fact, the archive holds not only 10,000 products and 100,000 historical documents and photos but also 35,000 original sketches by Lagerfeld himself, who was a great designer and not just of fashion. If a good part of Fendi’s success is due to the creative designer who reinterpreted the logo and gave new life to the fur coat, it is nevertheless necessary to take into consideration the general ability of the fashion house to read the needs of the time.
Returning baguettes
To understand how central the archive is in this approach to the 100th-anniversary celebrations in 2025, we must, however, focus on the bag that has become an icon more than any other. We are talking about the Baguette, designed by Venturini Fendi in 1997 and immediately becoming everyone’s dream. The Baguette fully synthesises the Maison’s ability to see change and represents the ’90s in every way. Minimalist in form, whimsical in decoration and comfortable to carry right under your arm. The Baguette was one of the first bags to kick-start the vintage market, and Fendi itself has not remained immune to this trend, so much so that it has bought back specific pieces – those created in collaboration with certain artists, for example – to return to the archives.
100 years in 2025
Hence, Fendi’s future will once again depend on the archives and the extent to which the fashion house manages to stay in the present, step by step, without jumping through hoops. It is no coincidence, to be sure, that all the major creatives of the current fashion scene have passed through Fendi. There was a time when, in the brand’s offices, in addition to Lagerfeld and Venturini Fendi, sat Alessandro Michele, Pier Paolo Piccioli, Maria Grazia Chiuri, and Frida Giannini. All are bewitched by the need to learn and the desire to transform a sleeping society precisely through fashion. Fendi has created a generation of designers who have changed the rules of the game. It is easy, then, to understand why the archive – its archive – is not just a repository.
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