Fendi and the cinema

09/27/2013

“Cinema has always been an important aspect of our family life and an important part of our brand. From the time I was a child, I remember screenings as being real events: times when cinema came to our house with plenty of white backdrop and a religious silence”. This is how Silvia Venturini remembers the historic bond between her family and the big screen. Some of cinema’s greatest directors and costume designers have turned to the Fendi sisters over the course of the last fifty years: from Piero Tosi to Bertolucci, to Wes Anderson, Scorsese, and Tornatore. The exhibition at Cinema Manzoni, “Making Dreams - Fendi and the Cinema”, has been beautifully staged by Patrick Kinmonth and Antonio Monfreda. The show consists of a multi-sensory trail, combining costumes and dresses (like that worn by Silvana Mangano in Luchino Visconti’s Family Group in an Interior) with photographs and screenings of original documentaries, and historic and recent film footage. Set amongst the curving lines, frescoes and sculptures of this extraordinary example of Milanese cinema architecture, the exhibition is open to the public until October 6th. The real stars of the show are undoubtedly the fur coats, the pride and joy of the brand. We have seen them over the years in some extraordinary films, worn by beautiful women such as the Bond Girls in Die another day, Isabelle Huppert in True Story of the Lady of the Camellias, Madonna in Evita, Gwyneth Paltrow in The Royal Tenenbaums and Tilda Swinton in I am Love.