Jill Kortleve and Paloma Elsesser tonight became the first ever so-called “plus-size” models to walk a Fendi runway. There was also a sprinkling of relatively “older”—but let’s face it, still winners in the genetic lottery of life—representation via Karen Elson (what she did to that gray knit was borderline profane), Liya Kebede, Carolyn Murphy, and Jacquetta Wheeler. Backstage we wondered if Silvia Fendi, one of only two preeminent female designers in the Milan fashion universe, ever found it frustrating to always present shows whose casts were defined by the fashion fascist diktat of sample size (the other great female seer of Milan fashion had been all super-skinny shortly before). “Of course,” she replied. “Especially because you talk to me and I am not really a prototype of that shape. So it’s liberating for me to portray these clothes in a different way, on different sizes.” Size-wise, two models in a cast of 50-ish is hardly a landslide change, but even for such baby steps applause is still due.
Fendi mentioned liberation, and that was the spirit of a show presented on a fittingly curvy, pink upholstered runway. The spectrum of that freedom ran from the liberatedly libidinous to the glass-ceiling smashing, or “from the boudoir to the boardroom” as the show notes flaccidly put it. The pieces that combined executive chic with a sexual tweak were effectively overpowering: cashmere overcoats with the imprint of corsetry boning (ahem). The sleeve shape at the top was something Fendi termed “pull off” and the half-undressed effect was markedly different in a pink satin version with lace back-paneling (ingenue) compared with an identically cut example in black velvet (vamp). This was a collection that embraced the double standards of male-eye categorization and short-circuited them via disassembly and disguise: dressing up for self-gratification rather than that of others. There was also doubleness in the materials. A mohair topcoat looked to be fashioned from patches of colored fur. The paisley-meets-leopard-print body of a jacket was made of mink, but upcycled. The freakishly oversized shopping bags (same as menswear, but pink instead of house yellow) and gleaming tech accessories from house stylist Charlotte Stockdale’s Chaos were suitably stimulating sundries.
Female authorship of the wearable expressions of female power, whether sexual, social, or professional, seems like an absolutely correct act of representation now. Male designers of whatever sexuality sketching them feels increasingly jarring. This collection was a thrill that should prompt its watchers to conclude: I’ll have what she’s having.
