Fendi Spring 2012 Review
Photos: Imaxtree
Looks from the Fendi Spring 2012 collection
Show: Fendi
Hair: Sam McKnight
Makeup: Peter Phillips
Accessories: High-heeled mules in striped silk, studded holdalls and boxy, bookish clutch-bags, "Mad Scientist" goggle sunglasses
Overall takeaway: The formula for perfect Fendi chic
"An exasperated mathematician with hair caught in the trees." Those were hairstylist Sam McKnight's watchwords for Karl Lagerfeld's latest collection for Fendi, set against a soaring protractor like a sun breaking over the horizon. Of course, this wasn't any ordinary protractor. Whatever angle you looked at, it was Fendi. That's a fitting description of Lagerfeld's design approach too.
This time, Lagerfeld looked to rigor and graphicism, cutting striped poplin and crisp cotton with severity and precision. The surprising element to the equation was that the sharp formula added up to great, easy day clothing. Next to over-stuffed, over-pumped evening clothes, Lagerfeld's fresh and easy offering literally felt like a breath of fresh air, with A-line skirts, fitted blazers with compass-cut circular slices across the shoulders, and even a few bib-fronted dresses (they looked unconventionally terrific). Silvia Venturini Fendi's bags were either practical hold-all shapes or chic little clutches shaped not until unlike an exercise book—although these frothed with fur and embroidery.
As for those crazed scientist references? Lagerfeld may have seen Einstein in Sam McKnight's disheveled bouffants and those goggle sunglasses, but they were equally redolent of good times on the Italian riviera circa 1962. I'd place a bet which of those the Fendi customer will relate to best.
SEE THE SPRING 2012 RUNWAY COLLECTIONS
