25/06/2025
Lifestyle
Published in Unique Estates Life Summer 2025
At the beginning of last year Casa Grande was introduced – the fragrance that carries in its pyramid structure everything essential for the Fendi fashion family. Even then, the driving force of the company, Silvia Venturini Fendi – granddaughter of Adele and Edoardo Fendi (the founders of the family business, who placed their name as a talisman) – hinted that this year would mark a majestic celebration of the centenary of the Italian fashion house. “I knew this fragrance was something we were missing,” Silvia said during the launch of the perfume, as if with a time machine taking us back to 1925, when her grandmother Adele and grandfather Edoardo opened their small leather workshop.
The Casa Grande fragrance pays tribute to Adele, whose maiden name was Casagrande (literally, “The Great House”). Destiny seemed to know its work when the girl named Casagrande and the ambitious, enterprising Italian Edoardo Fendi began their family business. At first, their goal was to secure a suitable dowry for their daughters. Adele combined initiative, kindness, and originality. Thanks to that, a hundred years later her descendants continue their path in fashion.
After the launch of Casa Grande (with an enriched formula of cherry liqueur and Somali frankincense oil, designed to evoke the scent of natural leather), during the Milan fashion shows earlier this year, the family organized a true celebration. All living members of the original family gathered. But Casa Grande was not the only surprise. Another fragrance appeared, bearing the sweet name Dolce Bacio, inspired by one of Adele’s daughters – Anna Fendi. At her impressive 91 years, she created a seductive perfume with a rose note, reminiscent of the tender warmth of a mother’s kiss. The emotional tributes to the family continued with a few more variations – Semper Mio and Ciao Amore, inspired by Silvia’s daughters, jewelry designer Delfina Delettrez Fendi and Leonetta Luciano Fendi, who managed to bottle the festive mood and remind us of the priceless value of family and sisterhood.
Together with the company’s perfumer Quentin Bisch, Silvia began working two years before the centenary with a clear vision to create an olfactory herald of the great celebration. “I wanted to capture the feeling of the first raindrops on warm dry soil, like the memories of my childhood years spent in Southern and Eastern Africa. And so Prima Terra was born – an irresistible cocktail of mandarin, Tunisian rosemary and oak moss.”
The seven unique Fendi fragrances are both a tribute to the past and a symbol of the future. With such a foundation, the formula for family pride surprised no one at the Fendi fashion show in Milan. On stage, Silvia’s grandsons – twins Tazio and Dardo – opened a large gate, symbolizing the idea of home. A home with the scent of Baguette – the name of Fendi’s best-selling bag – and a fragrance Silvia created especially for this festive collection. She admitted she was inspired by her beloved grandsons’ favorite breakfast, children of her daughter Delfina and her former husband, Italian artist Nico Vascellari. “The Baguette is an eternal bag and will remain in Fendi’s history forever,” Silvia told the Italian magazine Grazia. “It was beautiful to dedicate it to the children – they are the future of our family.”
Back in 1925, when Adele and Edoardo Fendi opened their small leather workshop in Rome, the baton was later passed to their five talented daughters – Paola, Anna, Franca, Carla and Alda. Between the 1960s and 1990s, with the help of fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld (who worked with them for nearly six decades), they elevated the business to new heights. Without ever raising his voice at anyone in the team, as Silvia proudly recalls, the maestro created clothes for a family-run company that required close collaboration with the daughters. Silvia’s mother Anna was the one at the helm of Fendi. “She had the aura of an empress’s wife and commanded respect with her abilities, although at home she couldn’t even cook an omelet,” Silvia remembers. “She was so dedicated to aesthetics that even family dinners involved her guidance on the choice of cutlery, the color of the tablecloth, and only then the food. For many years we ate in color. My mother had blue, green, and black periods. Her colorful obsessions attracted many of my friends, who came with joy to witness and taste my mother’s blue rice.”
And while at the table Anna Fendi sought diversity of colors, in her personal life and especially in her role as a mother she was much more restrained. “Often passersby near our atelier thought my sisters and I were orphans, because we were always dressed in black. I had fallen in love with a pink dress, but my mother said it wasn’t refined, and I could never convince her to buy it!”
Everything in the life of Anna Fendi, who played a decisive role in managing the company after her parents retired, was subordinated to work and the colors of the collections. Silvia Venturini Fendi inherited the same meticulousness – for six years she even moved her daughter Delfina Delettrez’s birthday celebration to October (instead of her real November date) to fit the busy fashion calendar. “For the first six years of her life, I made her believe she was born in October, so that I could both work and attend our family’s fashion shows.” Today Delfina remembers those changes with a smile, saying that family was above all else – even birthday parties.
“I grew up surrounded by this alchemy – amazing people, fabrics and forms, and endless possibilities. I didn’t suffer from the shifting of my birthday because I inherited something greater – a company where style is a religion!”
In 1965, the family fashion house laid the foundation for an exceptionally successful partnership with young designer Karl Lagerfeld, who the sisters noticed from his debut collection in Paris. Thanks to the harmony between Fendi and Lagerfeld, over the next nearly six decades, the company transformed and expanded – eyewear, watches and handbags created under his keen eye and inspired by the five Fendi sisters.
In 2007, Fendi staged its fashion show not just anywhere, but on the Great Wall of China – an event still spoken of today. Innovation became the hallmark of “la famiglia”, leading Silvia Venturini Fendi, the third-generation designer, to create in 1997 the iconic Baguette bag – a fashion and cultural phenomenon. Silvia invited some of the most prominent artists of the time to reinterpret the bag. First was Jeff Koons, followed by Italian favorite Francesco Vezzoli, who also worked with Miuccia Prada. The Baguette appeared on the shoulder of actress Sarah Jessica Parker, and today remains a constant presence in the front row at Fendi’s shows.
Eleven years after the Baguette, Silvia introduced the Peekaboo bag, inspired by the children’s game. It became an instant hit. Already she was envisioning collaborations not only with artists but also with designers and celebrities. A decade later, Fendi unveiled capsule collections with Marc Jacobs, Instagram icon Kim Kardashian, Stefano Pilati and Donatella Versace.
Today, the family has entrusted Silvia Fendi with steering the grand family ship through the competitive seas of fashion. In 2001, a large share of the company was acquired by the luxury conglomerate LVMH. This prompted Silvia’s sister Ilaria, who had long worked in Fendi’s creative team, to invest in a large estate outside Rome, which she transformed into an eco-design factory and later an eco-hotel. “The Fendis have always been an example – independent and strong women in a male-dominated fashion industry,” Delfina Delettrez Fendi summed up.
At Fendi, nothing is quite what it seems at first glance. Even today, many fans do not know that the mirrored double F letters do not stand for Fendi Family, but for Fun Fur. This original idea belonged to Karl Lagerfeld. The company’s first logo was actually a squirrel, a nod to Edoardo’s gift to Adele – a painting of a squirrel in honor of her dedication and hard work. Lagerfeld suggested replacing it with something less literal, provoking clients and leaving room for interpretation.
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