For her first assortment at Fendi, Maria Grazia Chiuri didn’t go for a spectacle. As an alternative, she selected a sentence: Much less I, extra us.
Functioning as each a manifesto and a technique, the Fall/Winter 2026
. After 9 years at Dior—and a few 37 years after she first walked into Fendi’s Rome headquarters as a younger equipment designer—Chiuri’s return arrives as a full-circle second. Her Fall/Winter 2026 debut echoed the collaborative spirit of the 5 Fendi sisters, its founders.
The gathering unfolded as a real fusion of codes. Sheer lace robes and silk slips—signatures of Ms Chiuri—skimmed the physique with tactile directness, whereas deconstructed tailoring and relaxed, on a regular basis separates launched a observe of pragmatic resolve. Whereas some would possibly’ve anticipated a grand gesture, Chiuri’s dedication to creating wearable garments that match seamlessly into one’s wardrobe continues on at Fendi.
The designer additionally reasserted her long-standing dialogue between vogue and artwork. A collaboration with the late Italian visible poet Mirella Bentivoglio—developed with the Archivio Mirella Bentivoglio—introduced limited-edition jewelry conceived within the Nineteen Seventies into the current. Bentivoglio’s conceptual rings and earrings, rooted in wordplay and semantic subversion, appeared as wearable indicators. Clothes, too, carried fragments of language, with phrases like Olt3 and Senza senso reworking clothes into what Bentivoglio as soon as described as “verbal objects.”
Furthering the collective spirit, Chiuri enlisted SAGG Napoli—who she tapped for a efficiency throughout the Dior Spring/Summer 2025 runway—as soon as once more, creating slogan tees and soccer scarves that learn: “Rooted however not caught” and “Loyal however not obedient”, proposing stability over submission.
Equipment, naturally, held satisfaction of place. Not just for Fendi’s historical past of bag craftsmanship, but additionally as a discreet nod to Chiuri’s personal beginnings on the Home in 1989. Baguettes of assorted iterations swung nonchalantly on the hip, whereas lapel-grazing necklaces punctuated tailoring with graphic intent.
Underlying all of it was a meditation on emotional sturdiness: clothes remodelled and reimagined as archives of reminiscence slightly than seasonal novelties. In an period hooked on immediacy, the place era-specific codes are adopted time and again for empty nostalgia, Chiuri’s debut presents one thing steadier. Much less ego, extra alternate. Although some whinced on the paucity of color on the runway, its messaging felt clear sufficient. For Fendi’s new chapter, Chiuri isn’t rewriting the Home’s historical past, however widening the dialog.
