Ever since he was first announced as the successor to the late Karl Lagerfeld, the industry has been eagerly waiting to see what Dior menswear designer Kim Jones would do as Fendi’s new head of womenswear and couture — especially considering that he’d never officially designed in either category.
This week, he leapt into both when he unveiled his first collection for the Italian house, inspired by Virginia Woolf’s novel “Orlando,” about a male aristocrat who wakes up one day as a woman, and Charleston, the East Sussex home where Woolf and other members of the Bloomsbury Set would congregate.
The show was stacked with gauzy, crystal-embellished gowns; flowing capes and sharp, androgynous suiting.
In place of a traditional runway show, Jones took over Paris’ Palais Brongniart, with models navigating a maze of interlocking glass “F” shapes in a pre-taped video.
