Forget celebrities and Gen Z influencers – Fendi celebrates its Italian workforce

msn.com:

the Roman house that bears her family name, chose to celebrate stars of a different solar system entirely; its workforce of Tuscan artisans and factory workers.

Fendi set the show within the factory floors of its new leather epicentre, in the undulating hills outside Florence. A spellbinding setting outside, and the machinations of the craft process within, with craftspeople nimbly sewing, stitching, glueing and packaging as the designer showed her spring/summer 2024 men’s collection as part of the city’s Pitti Uomo men’s fashion fair.

Fendi might be as Roman as cacio e pepe, but its roots are Florentine.  “Florence is where the story begins, because my grandmother came here to learn the art of leather goods.

She had relatives here and learned her craft, going on to open a store devoted to leather back in Rome in 1925,” said Fendi. “We’re so immersed so we felt it was time to put the artisanal processes at the centre of the story, and how man and machine work together for a new kind of 21st-century artisan for the future. ” This wasn’t the twee image of Geppetto whittling by candlelight in his Tuscan garret, but a glossy spacecraft of a building with the new generation learning ancient techniques from experienced craftspeople (the house run a school) and applying modern technologies to the process.