Fendi makes a splash with its New York windows

Fendi is dressing up New York’s sidewalk eye candy with windows celebrating some of its recent market coups.

Saks Fifth Avenue is dedicating its May windows to the pre-launch of its summer 2023 follow-up collection of the Fendi X Marc Jacobs collaboration. In tandem further up the avenue, Fendi unveiled an homage to Karl Lagerfeld’s 54-year career at the fashion house to further its association with the late German designer who is the subject of this year’s Costume Institute exhibit Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty. Jacobs and Fendi staged the buzziest event last September at NYFW when they unveiled the resort 2023 collaboration of the New York designer and Rome-based brand, which focused heavily on the 25th anniversary of the iconic bag. (The show also revealed Tiffany & Co., Sarah Jessica Parker, and Porter got involved in the reborn baguette craze that debuted at the show).

The windows, on display from May 10 to May 23, will be an immersive digital experience with multiple LED screens housed in cubes displaying the content that highlights the collection key color schemes and Fendi logos with an uptown-meets-downtown vibe. The key fluoro-yellow color will be prominent in the ground floor accessories display of the collection as well as on floor 3 and 8, which showcase the clothes and shoes, respectively.

The collection, whose genesis combines modernity with Gilded-Age silhouettes, salon, and street influence, and the mood of both uptown and downtown, continues for summer 2023 with a collection heavy on codes of the Fendi Roma logo, exaggerated, oversized silhouettes anchored by platform shoes. On 57th Street on the main floor of the iconic Fuller building opposite Tiffany, Fendi is wrapping up windows on another side of its design language. The displays were based on Karl Lagerfeld’s fifty-plus year career at the Italian house, a fact that is often overshadowed by his work at Chanel that began 18 years after his appointment at Fendi. The windows displayed fifteen archival looks curated with the help of Lagerfeld creative consultant Amanda Harlech combined with sketches displayed on digital screens across three floors.The Fendi-centric New York splash follows close ties with the Big Apple. Besides the Fendi X Marc Jacobs extravaganza last September, the brand took over the street of Times Square in 2021 with the Fendi Roma billboard light show and the F is for Fendi project in 2017 at the Boiler Room in New York.