For Kim Jones, Fendi’s artistic director of Womenswear, Marc Jacobs is the King of Fashion in America, a master of branding and experimentation, particularly with logos.
As for Marc Jacobs, creative director and founder of the Marc Jacobs brand, he has a very strong admiration for Fendi’s signature bag style, The Baguette, which debuted in 1997 and got its name from the way a Fendi Baguette bag sits like a French bread under the arm when it is carried.
No wonder the two iconic brands recently came together to launch the limited-edition Fendi by Marc Jacobs capsule collection.
“Here, Marc has designed a Fendi collection. It is not a collaboration; rather, it is an interpretation. In it, there is a sense of freedom in excess and joy, where he was allowed to do whatever he wanted,” Jones says, pertaining to the collection.
Marc Jacobs’ interpretation of Fendi is a collection exploring the Fendi iconic silhouettes and bags as Baguette and Peekaboo that utilizes the spirit of friendship and fun. Jacobs is a long-time friend and mentor to Jones, and this collection reflects both that personal relationship and the respect that Jacobs holds for Fendi as a house and the birthplace of an iconic item of pop product: The Baguette style and the Fendi icon.
It comes as no surprise, therefore, that Jacobs has come up with a number of contemporary interpretations of The Baguette bag in the collection he designed for Fendi. They are at once an interpretation and a celebration of the Baguette on its 25th anniversary as well as a recognition given to the city in which its place in pop culture history was sealed: New York.
In this rough-cut romance between uptown and downtown, luxury and utility, excess and reality, the Baguette and the clothing and accessories it has inspired are a moment in history and at the same time a part of a continuum with today. The Fendi store is located at Greenbelt 4, Ayala Center, Makati.