Sarah Becker’s blinged-out bag.
Fendi mannequins about to be transformed by Massimiliano Adami.
Spanish artist Nacho Carbonell, for one, was armed with just a stapler as he diligently covered his animal-shaped chicken-wire forms with swatches of earth-toned and brightly colored suede. A few feet away, Peter Marigold, a Ron Arad protégé, delved into boxes full of red, fuchsia, turquoise and green leather pieces. Used to working with metal and wood, Marigold admitted to being initially bewildered by the “alien” materials he eventually transformed into harlequinesque coffee-table blocks that fit together. Before Craft Punk, he traveled to Rome to get an insider’s perspective at a Fendi factory. “Just to see the level of craftsmanship in patternmaking was great,” Marigold says. “I mean, these old ladies have been doing it for years, and the old guys cutting out leather with razor blades—absolutely artisan work.”
For those who couldn’t make it to Rome, Fendi flew one of its seasoned technicians to Milan to dispatch precious advice over the course of the three days. Simon Hasan, a 2008 Royal College of Art graduate, took full advantage of the opportunity, asking the craftsman to help him stitch together his quirky collection of leather vases. “He’s so much better and quicker than me,” says Hasan. “He showed me some nice tips about threading the needle and finishing the edges. I’ll definitely be practicing.” The stitching, though, was one of the last steps of Hasan’s lengthy process, a technique that harks back to the 15th century, when solidified hides were used for armor and chest plates. Hasan wrapped Fendi-supplied hides around old wooden shoe lasts and blocks, then boiled them. Two days later, the stiff leather shells were sewn together.
Slovakian Tomáš Gabzdil Libertiny, whose Honeycomb Vase was recently acquired by New York’s Museum of Modern Art, was lucky enough to nab Fendi’s leather trenchcoat, pants and shoes—all from its fall 2008 collection—to wear as protective gear while he welded stainless steel into a large, hollow doughnut-shaped sculpture.
Yet it was Danish accessories and textile designer Sarah Becker, whose past stints include collaborations with John Galliano and MaxMara, who felt most at home in the house of Fendi. It’s fitting, then, that she stuck to her craft, going to town with Fendi’s scraps—leather, buttons, chains, fur and logoed canvas—to make blingy bags and costume jewelry with a punk undercurrent. Becker displayed her finished products atop asymmetrical stacks of yellow Fendi boxes.
Though the house’s throwaways stimulated the creative whims of some participants, Studio Glithero’s Tim Simpson and Sarah van Gameren chose to use non-Fendi materials to make their ceramic vases, whose Prussian-blue color was created by UV rays. And it was just this project that caught the discerning eye of Silvia Venturini Fendi. “Their vases are very poetic,” she says. “I love the blue, and, visually speaking, they are probably the least shocking of all the items.”
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