It’s been years since New York has seen a vogue manufacturing as massive as tonight’s Fendi present. Kim Jones and Silvia Venturini Fendi got here to city to mark a milestone, the twenty fifth anniversary of the Italian label’s Baguette bag—a bag, stated Venturini Fendi, “that does what vogue ought to do: convey pleasure to folks”—and so they threw fairly a celebration. The Hammerstein Ballroom was remodeled with mushy beige carpet and curtain, the tough edges of the rock venue all however buffed away. Within the entrance row, Kim Kardashian, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Naomi Watts held down one finish of the bench, and Kate Moss, Shalom Harlow, and Amber Valletta the opposite. What Grace Jones was doing within the second row is anybody’s guess. Then, after all, there’s what occurred on the runway itself.

First, although, a phrase on the New York connection. Intercourse & the Metropolis made the Baguette well-known. “It was virtually like a personality,” Jones stated at a preview. “So I assumed let’s do the present right here, and let’s add in just a few curveballs as we all the time do.” That Jones is a prodigious collaborator has been effectively documented, however the match-ups he orchestrated this season have been notably impressed. Tiffany & Co., an LVMH model like Fendi, was introduced in to offer the baguettes—as in diamond baguettes. The double-F emblem on the Tiffany blue croc Baguette carried by Bella Hadid was pavéd within the valuable stones.

Marc Jacobs and Jones return to their days collectively at Louis Vuitton, the place Jacobs was one thing of a serial collaborator himself—see Stephen Sprouse, Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, and Yayoi Kusama—and anyway who’s New Yorkier than him? Jacobs’s part riffed on his current collections with block letter intarsias spelling out FendiRoma moderately than his personal emblem on every little thing from tracksuits and trucker jackets and matching denims to an oversize terry gown.

“I referred to as Marc up and requested him if he needed to design a set for Fendi. I haven’t been concerned in any respect,” Jones defined. “We labored facet by facet throughout fittings. We have been doing ours, he was doing his. I’m wanting very a lot at 1997 and I believe Mark’s is recent and now.” Google outcomes for Fendi’s collections from 1997 don’t yield many overlaps between that 12 months and at the moment. Jones was after extra of a sense. “I used to be fascinated by once I was first coming to New York and we’d exit clubbing,” he stated. Therefore the irreverent, excessive/low mixture of sequins and utility jackets, or a shearling sherpa and a mini. He meant what he stated about utility. Even beanies and gaiters got here with built-in Baguettes, as did most of the clothes, these shearling sherpas most temptingly.

For the kicker, Linda Evangelista, who’s the present face of Fendi, glided out, resplendent in a Tiffany blue opera cape, with a sterling silver Baguette bag within the criminal of her arm. Jacobs, who joined Jones and Venturini Fendi for a bow, inspired everybody to face up—not that the group wanted any convincing.