Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Fendi couture debut was less a change of address than a return to origin. After nearly a decade at Dior, the designer returned to Rome with a show at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea that read as both a collection and a cultural manifesto. Rather than mining the city for easy antiquity, Chiuri cast Fendi through a contemporary Roman lens, setting the runway in dialogue with two exhibitions: one revisiting Karl Lagerfeld’s 1985 Fendi presentation through his illustrations and fur designs, the other tracing the house’s haute couture from 2015 onwards. Together, they framed the debut as a meditation on craft, memory and modern identity at a maison built on luggage, leather, textiles and fur.
On the runway, that reset took shape in silhouettes that slipped free of Dior’s disciplined hourglass and Lagerfeld’s sharper 1980s exaggerations. Chiuri favoured unwaisted forms suspended from the shoulder, letting fabric move around the body rather than contain it. Kimono-cut jackets, satin cuffs, capes, black lace, flared trousers, bias-cut dresses, and A-line caftans proposed a quieter, more fluid couture language, with an opening chevron caftan — inspired by a dress worn by Emilie Flöge — signalling the move away from corseted Parisian drama. The atelier work carried the same restraint: an ivory cloak that first appeared lace-like revealed, up close, a dense construction of fur, leather and fabric flowers, while pieces from Fendi’s Echo of Love upcycling programme reframed the house’s complicated fur legacy through reuse and handcraft. For a smaller LVMH-owned maison, Chiuri’s first statement suggested not reinvention for spectacle’s sake, but a considered recalibration of Fendi’s Roman codes.
Couture is fashion’s pinnacle: intricate, personal and highly crafted. For her Fendi couture debut, Maria Grazia Chiuri presented the Fall/Winter 2026–2027 collection at Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea. Not suprinsingly her show attracted many VIPs and celebrities in the front row. Front-row guests included Sarah Jessica Parker, Jessica Alba, Yara Shahidi and Monica Bellucci.
A month before Chiuri’s couture debut, Fendi staged another major launch: a new campaign celebrating the Baguette. “It’s not a bag, it’s a Baguette!” Carrie Bradshaw famously declared in Sex and the City while clutching her purple-sequined Fendi purse during a mugging scene. The line secured the Baguette’s place in pop-culture history and helped make it one of fashion’s most enduring it-bags. Nearly three decades later, Fendi is reviving that same confident spirit with a campaign fronted by Sarah Jessica Parker. Sarah Jessica Parker herself. In a full-circle moment, the campaign restores the Baguette to its original 1997 silhouette under Maria Grazia Chiuri’s creative direction for her first Fall/Winter 2026–27 Fendi collection.
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