“FF could easily be ‘Fendi Firenze,’” said Silvia Venturini Fendi a couple of days ahead of the posh brand’s show at its factory in Capannuccia, Bagno a Ripoli, a 30-minute drive from Florence as this season’s Pitti Uomo special guest.

The reference to Florence is powerful, said the Fendi scion and accessories and menswear artistic director. She revealed that her grandmother, Adele Fendi, founded the home in 1925 in Rome but that a couple of years earlier she had learned the craft from cousins who were leather goods artisans within the Tuscan city.

“We’re about to have fun our centennial and so it’s inevitable to reflect on what’s been done, and likewise by way of transparency, which I believe goes to be a very important asset for the longer term, it’s great to point out where things are made, who makes them and the way,” Venturini Fendi said about showing at the ability, decamping from Milan where the brand normally stages its shows. “It’s like in food — all of us need to know, there’s widespread conscience and consciousness so [it’s great to] find a way to open up our headquarters, the center [of the company],” she added.

The state-of-the-art facility in Capannuccia, dedicated to the production of Fendi’s most iconic bags and small leather goods, is nestled within the Tuscan countryside and inserted into the landscape where an abandoned kiln lay, the Fornace Brunelleschi.

Punctuated by nine glazed courtyards that make clear interior spaces, the complex is surrounded by seven hectares of greenery scattered with a 700-olive tree grove, allowing the production of oil from the factory itself of as much as 900 liters a yr.

“There was no overbuilding here,” Venturini Fendi said. “It’s like a diamond nestled within the hills…we’ll make our own olive oil someday,” she said, emphasizing the thoughtfulness that went into the factory’s revamp.

The positioning, which obtained the LEED Platinum certification this week, won’t serve just because the backdrop for the gathering. Because the place where the home’s craftsmen turn leather hides into the ‘It’ bags Venturini Fendi helped propel to global fame, Capannuccia triggered the designer to have fun work — most notably Fendi’s handiwork.

“The gathering could be very much inspired by workwear, uniforms and work basically,” she said. “Within the collective imagination, [artisans] evoke the concept of an old man bent doing a repetitive job, but today advanced artisans are also engineers, due to machinery. Today our job is humans and machines [working] together,” she said. “Handiwork and savoir faire aren’t any longer sufficient, one must have an open mind, very mathematic, engineered and artistic.”

Fittingly, she will probably be putting artisans on the catwalk and make them come to the fore within the director’s cut video the home will release after the show.

After exploring many characters in her most up-to-date collections — from the Fred Astaire-ish type in his tailcoat tuxedo to the hippie-nodding surfer guy in crafty tropes — she characterised her spring men as young executives sporting pristine striped shirts layered under tabliers, or pinafores, as short as miniskirts but equipped with pockets for tools.

They wear roomy and oh-so-comfy trucker jackets and pants in an ivory white canvas that the workwear-loving generation would buy into, in addition to intricately woven overcoats mixing suede, leather, shearling and cotton threads, with the occasional meterstick — crafted from leather — accenting a tailored coat.

“There may be a way of great freedom [in menswear], which is amazing. I believe that has been one of the vital interesting things that happened up to now decade. I all the time ask them [models], ‘would you wear it?’ and so they say ‘yes’,” she said gesturing toward a smiling model donning a denim apron.

In fact, provided that it’s Fendi, the show will feature bags galore, too.

As the lady who in 1997 masterminded the long-lasting Baguette bag, Venturini Fendi is the one at the home with more say on the general accessories landscape and trends, which have seen not only a spike in using handbags by male customers but even an inclination to don bags traditionally intended for girls.

“Almost every look will include a bag. We needed to go full in and show what these men and ladies [artisans] created,” she said.

From the Fendi Rex embossed, crocodile-patterned Baguettes and backpacks to Peekaboos bearing the identical graphics that appear on patternmaking paper, in addition to the brand new Chiodo, or spike, messenger bag with oversize metal hardware on the side and raffia and leather beach-ready duffle bags, Venturini Fendi is serving up options aplenty.

There may be even an FF-patterned, lunchbox-inspired handkerchief bag and an office gadget, a leather coffee cup holder with three recycled plastic, Fendi-logoed cups.

In step with Fendi’s commitment to spotlight global crafts — also key within the Fendi “Hand in Hand” project focused on the Baguette bag — Venturini Fendi has invited celebrated architect Kengo Kuma to chip in and choose an artisan to transform the Peekaboo design.

“I believe he’s the best architect in terms of mixing natural composition with engineering and architecture,” Venturini Fendi said. “I like him because he represents this recent art form [combining] old savoir faire and recent technologies.”

Kuma conscripted a Japanese artist known for her work on washi paper, which is crafted right into a sculptural version of the Peekaboo bag. The identical material was employed for garments including tailored blazers and bottoms that even up close one could mistake for linen.

“The project evolves and becomes more composite, combining Fendi, artisans and creatives,” the designer said, gesturing toward one other bag conceived by Kuma with front panels fabricated from birchwood.

She’s very keen on sustainability, a subject she said the corporate has been tackling “silently” for a very long time now. “We’re very advanced,” she said, mentioning how the Fendi-logoed canvas is now entirely constructed from recycled jacquard and leather goods within the Selleria range jumpstarted by her grandmother are all metal-free. The gathering also features bio-based dyes employed for woolen yarns utilized in tailoring and knitwear.

“I believe goods should include a passport…there will probably be rules, increasingly more, because persons are in search of transparency, they need to know what they buy and who makes the products. Since after COVID-19 runway shows’ livestreamings have drawn huge audiences, so it’s going to be beautiful to showcase and see how these people [artisans] work, which could be very different from what happens in fast fashion [companies],” she said.