The Fendi Spring 2023 Haute Couture collection is an inner world made into an external one – both figuratively and literally – with a sense of underwear becoming eveningwear. Eschewing ‘costume’ and embracing a softer, more yielding feeling of agency for the woman in the clothing, a mutability is sought and expressed.

“This season, I wanted to concentrate on the techniques and craft of couture, with the lightness, fluidity and attitude of today. It’s a celebration of the ateliers and the craftspeople who realise these garments, the intense work and emotional commitment to each piece that exists for both maker and wearer, and how the intimate traditions of the couture are both living and breathing,” said Kim Jones, Fendi Artistic Director of Couture and Womenswear.

Winged sleeves are often detachable; lingerie is designed as part of a look, often in the same intensely embroidered and unexpected fabrications, even when invisible; coats mirror the intense embroidery of their matching dresses on the inside yet can be reversed; ‘apron’ wrap skirts can also be worn as stoles.

Draping and tying on the body, the exploration of lace and its placement, the hand-pleating motifs, together with an elevation of exceptional knit, give a sense of the sculptural and organic while at the same time displaying virtuoso ‘sprezzatura’. Even utilitarian climbing carabiners are remade as luxury sculptural objects, to tether materials nonchalantly.

An idea of done and undone, a machine world versus an organic one, making hard soft and vice versa comes together with the supreme skills of the ateliers in the motif of the metallic leather-lace. At times appearing like chainmail – particularly in the recurring gloves – exceptionally soft and malleable leather is handcrafted with both lace-like cut-outs and inset with lace intarsias for a passage of dresses with their matching ensemble underwear.

Fendi Artistic Directors Kim Jones, Silvia Venturini Fendi, and Delfina Delettrez Fendi discuss their visions for Fendi Couture Spring 2023 backstage.