Fendi by Karl Lagerfeld black lycra maxi dress, ss 1997

The name Fendi had been around for decades when a young German designer named Karl Lagerfeld took the creative helm at the company in 1965. But it was not until then, however, that the Italian brand became a world-renowned fashion house. In fact, Lagerfeld, who produced four to five collections yearly for the label — and is celebrated for the shoes, purses and other pieces he created for Fendi — is credited with creating the company’s instantly recognizable double-F logo (which stands for “Fun Furs”) in “less than five seconds.” Until Lagerfeld started designing for the brand, fur was a material mostly associated with heavy coats that few people actually wore. The designer reimagined fur in creative ways, using it as an accent on purses, cuffs on dress sleeves and collars on wool coats.

More than a mere tastemaker, Karl Lagerfeld devoted himself to the continual pursuit of chic. “My life and my job,” the designer once said, “is to forget myself.” During his five-decade career as a designer for Chanel, Fendi, Chloé and many others, Karl Lagerfeld was a quintessential chameleon, ever evolving to embody the times. An outsize, instantly recognizable personality — his ponytail powdered like an 18th-century viscount, his eyes perpetually shielded by dark glasses, wearing fistfuls of chunky silver jewels — Lagerfeld was, above all, an avatar of style.

Born in Hamburg (in 1933, ’35, or ’38 by varying accounts), Karl Lagerfeld packed his bags for Paris in 1954. His design for a coat won him the International Wool Secretariat and landed him a job with the celebrated couturier Pierre Balmain. He went on to become the designer of Jean Patou, eventually realizing that his seemingly endless ideas could fuel a career as a designer-for-hire. As such, Lagerfeld lent his vision to everyone from Loewe and Max Mara to Krizia and Charles Jourdan, nimbly moving among a diverse range of styles. It was an unprecedented way of working in the days when freelance was still a dirty word. 

In the mid-1960s, Lagerfeld joined forces with the Fendi family, taking it from sleepy furrier to fashion’s haute-est stratum. In 1983, he was handed the reins at Chanel, which had been gathering dust since its founder’s heyday. His collections for the brand displayed his knack for synthesizing old and new, high and low, and he used each season’s inspiration to conceive Chanel’s signatures anew. Lagerfeld created eight collections a year for Chanel and designed more than 100 collections for Fendi over the course of more than fifty years. Despite this pace, he never faltered in proposing new ideas each time he put pencil to paper. 

Find vintage Karl Lagerfeld Fendi clothing on 1stDibs.

Like other major European luxury fashion houses, Fendi started small. Adele Casagrande was an Italian creative who loved fashion and sold leather and fur accessories from a tiny workshop she opened in Rome in 1918. However, after marrying Edoardo Fendi in 1925, her business model was altered dramatically. Together, the couple changed the boutique’s name to Fendi and moved into a bigger storefront, which quickly became the favorite shop of women all over Italy’s capital city for furs and leathers, such as handbags, coats and accessories.

As time moved on for Adele and Edoardo, the couple began to distribute more responsibility to their five daughters, who assumed management of the company during the 1950s. Fendi’s audience broadened and its profitability has soared over the years, owing to the brand’s fresh perspective on fashion world happenings and innovative sensibility.

The maison also has a distinctive relationship with old-world Italian craftsmanship. The Selleria bags were the work of master saddlers in Rome, and Fendi partnered with lace artisans in southern Italy as well as craftsmen in the east trained in the intrecciato (intertwined) technique (an idea that Adele introduced during the 1940s), which, in Fendi’s case, sees an interwoven leather fabric integrated in the creation of its handbags, countering leather’s traditional rigidity with a bag that is soft, versatile and fitted with an alluring slouchy curve.

It wasn’t until 1965, however, when a young German designer named Karl Lagerfeld took the creative helm that Fendi became a world-renowned fashion house. In fact, Lagerfeld, who produced four to five collections yearly for the brand, is credited with creating Fendi’s instantly recognizable double-F logo (which stands for “Fun Furs”) in “less than five seconds.” Until Lagerfeld started designing for the brand, fur was a material mostly associated with heavy coats that few people actually wore. Lagerfeld reimagined fur in creative ways, using it as an accent on purses, cuffs on dress sleeves and collars on wool coats.

Over the ensuing years, Fendi has broken into the home-goods market with Fendi Casa and has become synonymous with luxury fashion, producing such pieces as the iconic Baguette, which was rendered ever popular on the television series Sex and the City. In fact, an entire episode during the third season was dedicated to the “original It bag,” a slim accessory tapered in a manner that recalls its namesake, designed in 1997 by Adele and Edoardo’s granddaughter Silvia Venturini Fendi, who was named creative director of accessories three years earlier.

Perhaps just as well known as its vintage Baguette handbags and creative use of fur is the brand’s devotion to its Italian roots. In 2013, Fendi donated more than 2 million euros to restore Rome’s Trevi Fountain, and when it was reopened to visitors, Fendi hosted its Autumn/Winter 2017 show on top of the landmark.

Fendi was a family-controlled brand until 1999 and is now owned by LVMH. In late 2020, British fashion designer Kim Jones was named the house’s artistic director for womens wear.

Find a wide variety of vintage Fendi handbags and purses, clothing and other accessories on 1stDibs.