Fendi Spring 1999 Ready-to-Wear Collection

Editor’s Note: Ahead of the opening of “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty” at the Costume Institute, we are celebrating his talent by adding five newly digitized archival shows he designed to the Vogue Runway Archive. This one, for Fendi, was shown in October 1998 in Milan.

Karl Lagerfeld’s favorite material was paper, and he seemed to transfer some of its properties—such as its flat two-dimensionality—to leather and other materials for this Fendi collection. The spring 1999 season anticipated Y2K, and as a new century loomed many designers looked back to the Space Age. The crisp whites in this collection as well as its sock shoes could owe something to André Courregès, or simply to the possibility and promise embodied in a clean sheet of paper, Lagerfeld’s daily starting point.

Much of the construction seemed to follow the length and width of the materials, with little seaming or darting. When Vogue photographed Gisele Bündchen in white puddle pants with proportions that rivaled those of JNCO jeans for the March 1999 issue, the magazine’s editors made a connection with hip-hop. They also resembled sails, adding to the collection’s feeling of (pre-White Lotus) Italian Riviera glam. The following month in another editorial, Bündchen wore an airy and sporty red skirt from this show barefoot on the beach.

Taking up the scissors, Lagefeld cut horizontal slits into the sides of dresses and tops, which fell open to reveal a contrasting color, akin to double-face paper. Some jersey dresses with insets had the simple graphic impact of a Matisse cutout. Adding texture was a wrinkled Tyvek-like fabric. The matte gold dresses, reported The Daily Telegraph, were made using cowhide gilded with gold paint. A different type of sheen was created by Lagerfeld’s use of plastic, which he combined with leathers—bringing the synthetic and natural worlds together.

Accessories are a major element of any Fendi collection, and some of Silvia Venturini Fendi’s Baguette bags here featured the kind of bead and mirror work that hippies popularized in the Age of Aquarius. The brand expanded its menu to include an irresistible mini bag—a precursor to those of the late 2010s—in the form of the enticing, snack-sized Croissant.