It’s not news that furs are now being considered like any other fabric and used year round. And while Fendi certainly played a big role in this, you also have to credit Gilles Mendel, the designer and CEO of J. Mendel, for using his creativity and innovation to bring furs into the 21st century. Gilles stated that the collection was all about the exploration of the art of dressmaking, which is something he has been experimenting with for seasons now, and admitted that he "derived the greatest pleasure from taking the expected and turning it into the unexpected." Always inspired by vintage, he said that he wanted to create pieces that "had the feeling of modern heirlooms” and indeed the collection of coats and shrunken jackets with elbow length sleeves, narrow shoulders, exposed seams, high armholes, and hand tacked darts had a very strong vintage feel. As someone who has always experimented with fabrics like tweed, this time around, he deconstructed artisinal tweed and then reapplied it to a stretch chiffon base in order to make it light as a feather and weightless.

The entire collection was based on a very soft color palette: flesh tones and make up shades like almond, freesia, azalea, hyacinth, and bark layered over nude. While Gilles endorsed short pleated skirts and shorts for day, he like many others, endorsed pants showing them several times under little fur pieces (like the white wool gabardine trousers shown under a shrunken white broadtail vest and chiffon blouse). He worked with washed gold silk canvas, gold and brown wool tweed, silk faille (which was fashioned into beautiful trench coat), goat, chiffon, brocade, crinkle or printed chiffon, chantilly lace and mousseline. Furs used were broadtail and mink that was custom colored, sheared, and combined with organza and chiffon to ensure their lightness and weightlessness.

Standouts include the washed gold silk canvas jacket with silk satin trim skirt suit; the white broadtail and brushed organza coat and vest; an oatmeal velvet mink vest with white beads shown over an almond chiffon pleated gown; the white long haired mink and chiffon reversible jacket over sky blue chiffon ruffle front blouse and full white wool gabardine pants; and the pin tucked lace chiffon gown in pale butter with multi tiered skirts and elbow length puffed sleeves, and a pale rose and nude hand worked chiffon gown with scoop back and short puffed sleeves.

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