LVMH announces a Fendi runway show in homage to Karl Lagerfeld

By

Olivier Guyot

Translated by
Erin Floyd

Published
Apr 18, 2019

Fendi will stage a runway show in homage to its late creative director Karl Lagerfeld, LVMH said on Thursday.

The luxury group’s CEO, Bernard Arnault, announced at LVMH’s annual general meeting in Paris that the Italian fashion label with organise a show reprising the work of the designer, who passed away earlier this year. The show is scheduled to take place in Rome on July 4 this year.

“It was with great sadness that we bid farewell to Karl, who was the heart and soul of this label,” said Arnault at the meeting. “It is without a doubt the longest relationship between a label and a designer. In July, we will organise a runway show in Rome in tribute to Karl, reprising his work at Fendi.”

Lagerfeld was appointed to the top creative role at Fendi in 1965. He would oversee the collections for the Italian label, initially for fur and then later also for the womenswear line, which he launched 1977, until his death on February 19, 2019. On February 21, Fendi co-designer Silvia Venturini Fendi was the one to greet the crowd and pay tribute to the iconic couturier, at the Fall/ Winter 2019-2020 show, the last collection by the German designer.

"The bond between Karl Lagerfeld and Fendi is the most enduring love story in fashion and will continue to affect our lives for many years. I am deeply saddened by his death and extremely touched by the attention and constant perseverance that he gave until the very end. When we spoke on the phone just a few days before the show, he only had one thing on his mind: the beauty and sumptuousness of the collection. That is a true testament to his character. We will miss him so much," Silvia Fendi said in the show notes of the collection.