MILAN — If ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
After the success of its fall 2025 coed show in February, Fendi is continuing its 100th anniversary celebrations by sticking to the format. The Roman house will skip Milan Fashion Week in June to stage another coed runway show in September, WWD has learned.
Silvia Venturini Fendi, artistic director of accessories and menswear collections, will lead the design effort once again, while details on the date and location are still under wraps. Milan Fashion Week is scheduled for Sept. 23 to 29.
Prior to the event in February, Venturini Fendi had opted for the coed format only once previously, for the spring 2021 collection, following the height of the pandemic.
As for the most recent coed show, it offered an opulent start to the brand’s centennial year, intertwining the company’s past and present. For example, Venturini Fendi conceived a unique accordion invitation for the occasion — a booklet reproducing a number of photos taken over the years that she shared with guests. One portrayed her as a child model in a Fendi campaign for fall 1966; another was a group photo of the Fendi sisters — Paola, Franca, Carla, Anna and Alda, daughters of founder Adele Casagrande Fendi — in the Via Borgognona atelier.
As reported, the fall 2025 runway event also coincided with the reopening of Spazio Fendi on Via Solari in Milan, the Roman brand’s longtime runway theater and showroom, which underwent renovation.
In September, the show will mark the inauguration of the brand’s new palazzo, a sprawling flagship on Milan’s Via Montenapoleone. The space is expected to feature four retail floors topped by two levels to be occupied by a new Langosteria restaurant in a partnership with restaurateur Enrico Buonocore and investment vehicle Archive, established by Moncler chairman and chief executive officer Remo Ruffini and led by his son Pietro. Palazzo Fendi also will have a terrace overlooking the city.
In the meantime, the ongoing speculation about a possible successor to Kim Jones — who stepped down as Fendi’s artistic director of haute couture, ready-to-wear and fur collections for women after a four-year tenure in October — continues with potential candidates swinging from new names to familiar faces. Designers who have worked with Venturini Fendi through the years range from Frida Giannini and Maria Grazia Chiuri to Pierpaolo Piccioli, among others.
Granddaughter of Adele Fendi, who founded the family business with a leather goods and luggage shop in Rome in 1925, Venturini Fendi is perhaps best known as the woman who in 1997 masterminded the iconic Baguette bag, and as the designer of Fendi menswear since 2000.
What’s sure is that she will be flanked by a new CEO by the time of the runway show. Once again tapping its deep management reserves, Fendi’s parent company LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton appointed Ramon Ros to the role, effective July 1. Ros will move over from president and CEO of Louis Vuitton, mainland China and will report to Sidney Toledano, senior adviser to LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault.
At Fendi, Ros is to succeed Pierre-Emmanuel Angeloglou, who on April 15 became deputy CEO of Christian Dior Couture, as reported.