Kim Jones Was Inspired By Kyoto, Paris, And Rome For Fendi’s AW22 Couture Collection

Kyoto and Paris were major inspirations for Fendi’s AW22/23 Couture collection. Rome was too but not as much. Held at the Palais Brongniart in Bourse, in the heart of Paris, Kim Jones, the Artistic Director for Couture and Womenswear unveiled a collection that focuses on the fragments of different cities.

“This season, I wanted to step away from Rome, or at least I wanted to place Rome in a global context,” says Jones in notes. All three cities have commonality. Paris is where Japionism was founded and a place for western art to draw from, Rome is where Fendi is headquartered, and Kyoto is the reproduction place of the 18^th century kimono. Approaching the collection as a palimpsest where fragments and iterations of the past make up the present, Jones moved into the future to create minimal pieces.

And though minimal, they were no less expensive in materials. “In this collection, we are looking at fragments of different cities, namely Kyoto, Paris and Rome. The fragmentary nature of things is echoed throughout the collection, like snatches of memory or the impression of things past, present and future.”

A vicuña pants suit and a long-sleeved long dress in the same shade of brown are amongst the first looks. Long asymmetrical dresses with patchwork inspired by kimonos, and done in the same fabric of kimonos were seen throughout the collection. Kata Yuzen is a hundreds-of-years old technique used for hand printing and hand painting. This technique was applied to the dresses in the collection, done in Kyoto on silk panels and asymmetrically reformed for the dresses seen in the collection.

“Parallels are drawn between East and West, masculine and feminine, the natural and the man- made, tradition and the modern, right through Autumn-Winter. The Kata Yuzen dresses are echoed and find their continental counterpart in the sinuous, glittering crystal cages that more reflect the architectonic spirit of Paris in their construction and fabrication, yet still ultimately frame and yield to the body,” states the house.

Diving into the archives, Jones pulled from the Artistic director before him, Karl Lagerfeld and used eau-de-nil chiffon on the backs of the silver dresses. According to Vogue Runway, Lagerfeld commissioned the swatches from which they had been made from. Long sheer pieces create an artistic silhouette that are couture in every sense of the word from all the hours of stitching.

A collection that’s light in palette with a touch of embroidery, that’s shimmery while being multi-culti. Shimmer has been on trend during this Couture week and on the final day, Jones made a shimmery statement with his collection.