Dark Star

Multimedia artist Nico Vascellari confronts his demons in collaboration with fendi for S/S19

‘Take a walk on Fendi’s dark side, and back. Playfully,’ began the show notes for the Italian powerhouse’s S/S19 menswear collection. It was a fitting opener to the parade along a glossy black runway, emerging from a lava-red archway emblazoned with neon caricatures of snakes, demons and a clawed frog. At the centre of the archway, illuminated text reading ‘Fendi’ morphed periodically into its anagram, ‘Fiend’. The collection itself was a play on contrasts, with sturdy elements made light by perforations; paper masquerading as leather, and vice versa; all of it generously sprinkled with anagrams and the distinctive ‘double F’ logo.

As usual, the clothes were the work of the brand’s matriarch, Silvia Venturini Fendi, but the infernal set, and the prints and logos appearing throughout the collection bore the mark of her son-in-law, the 42-yearold punk musician-turned-multimedia artist Nico Vascellari. He follows in the footsteps of previous guest artists John Booth, Sue Tilley and Hey Reilly.