Fendi lets students take over shop
Italian fashion house Fendi has chosen first-year students from the postgraduate design school at the Royal College of Art (RCA), London, to take over its new Sloane Street boutique in the capital, turning it into their workshop.
The nine students, all from the design products department, were told simply to do “something spectacular” with their space. Their ideas for the ‘Anatomy of Fendi’ exhibition are inspired by the craftsmanship of the label’s leather collections, use discarded scraps from its production processes, and now sit alongside clothes by Karl Lagerfeld.
In one window, student Meret Probst has created glasses of rainbow-coloured dyes drip down a blank canvas onto three once-pristine white bags. “I think I am not destroying them at all – I am enhancing them,” the Swiss student said. “I was really inspired by the colours that they use when they dye leather and the way you can infuse material with colours. Making it was very exciting but felt like quite a lot of pressure too. It is such a huge platform as so many people walk past the shop.”
In the second window display is Lola Lely’s Kinetic Frenetic. A machine spins a ribbon of leather and the designer has set up motion sensors to accelerate and stop its movements.
Further inside the store, Samuel Weller and Imme van der Haak have dissected Fendi bags and turned them into small sculptures, which are displayed under museum-style domes, while Nicholas Wallenberg and Helena Karelson’s creation looks like the laboratory of Beaker from the Muppets. The pair boiled Fendi’s coloured leather skins to make a water-based pigment that will be used to decorate flowers.
The partnership between Fendi and the RCA is part of an ongoing campaign by the brand to promote emerging talent.
