FENDI @ SS2014 Men's Collection

FENDI SS2014 Men's Collection is desertification. Yellow sand everywhere. The fury of a blinding sun in full blast, burning everything out, drying and cracking surfaces, morphing colors, consuming matter. The new FENDI Men’s Collection delves into another deep extreme. That's what contemporary life is all about, after all: from one peak to the other, nothing in between. The FENDI man is fit and ready for any situation: an unfussy pragmatist, he acts and delivers. Period.

The heat wave calls for function in order to resist, produce and survive: exactitude of shape, tactility of color, lightness, compactness. When the elements burn, frivolity dries out: what is there needs to have a meaning, otherwise it is not. Lines are precise: clean, fast, compact. A sharp workwear feel recurs: utilitarian jackets, functional blousons, multi-purpose parkas, dense canvas trousers.

 There is an idea of modularity. Dealing with a desert environment demands to adapt quickly with as few moves as possible: sleeves can be detached; a double-face blazer can be turned inside-out. In an ongoing work in progress, pockets are taped on macs and jackets, the cracked surface of a coated leather parka gets increasingly fractured with use, color has been brushed away from lace-up shoes. Subtly psychedelic jacquards swarm on neat suits like an induced mirage. Echoes of Mediterranean cultures are dusted out yet still perceptible.

The color palette is earthy, mixing notes of terracotta, ochre, chalk, coal. Pixilated prints add vivid shots of primary brights. Selleria shoppers and weekend bags mix skins and colors in graphic compositions. Attachable mini-iPad cases and foldable briefcases are multi-purpose additions.

Ready for the heat wave, the desert explorer will walk on industrial dunes to the rhythms created by electronic composer Matthew Herbert out of environmental sounds.