The “F” Factor

How should tradition and modernity coexist today? Fendi’s newest Peekaboo bag suggests the answer.

- Lynn Yaeger

WHEN SILVIA VENTURINI FENDI was in London recently with her two daughters, she had a simple request: Could they please stop for a coffee? If only it were so easy. “I said, ‘Let’s go to this place,’ and my daughter said, ‘No! They don’t have organic coffee! We want to go to another place—they buy directly from Ecuador.’ So we walked and walked,” she recalls, observing that her kids, like her younger consumers, are demanding transparency and quality in what they buy. The whole notion of luxury, she says, now encompasses something as basic as a coffee break.

Venturini Fendi is the daughter of one of the five famous Fendi sisters, daughters of the house’s founders, and is the creative director for its accessories and menswear. Today, ensconced in her office in the company’s soaring headquarters in Rome, she is wearing a shirt subtly printed with Fs, from the men’s collection, and mulling the questions of the day: How do we keep young people interested in preserving age-old techniques? How does a historic house remain relevant when younger customers are demanding goods that express their individuality? The answer, it seems, is seeking out, developing, encouraging, and employing a new generation of brilliant craftspeople. “Our young artisans put their own imagination into what they do—I don’t know how many times they have come up with amazing solutions,” Venturini Fendi says.