Fendi Casa celebrates 30 years of success

By

Dominique Muret

Published
Apr 18, 2018

Fendi was one of the first couture houses to enter the homeware space with a dedicated collection, and on Wednesday, as part of Milan's Salone del Mobile, the brand celebrated the 30th anniversary of its home line, Fendi Casa, whose sales are estimated at over 70 million euros. 

The adventure started in 1987 when Italian entrepreneur Alberto Vignatelli met with Anna Fendi and proposed the idea of a home collection. Fendi Casa launched the following year, marking the beginning of an "intense and fruitful operation which strives for elegant style, the result of excellence in craftsmanship and continuous experimentation", as the brand puts it in an official release. 

Running Fendi Casa through a licence, Alberto Vignatelli founded Luxury Living Group, which he led up until his death last December. The Forlì, Italy-based company, which has since been taken over by its founder's daughter, Raffaella Vignatelli, began expanding in 2013 with the addition of new licences to its portfolio. 

Starting with Bentley Home, the company went on to gain licences for Trussardi Casa, Paul Mathieu's home collection, Bugatti Home, Ritz Paris and, more recently, Baccarat Maison. With sales revenue of 125.7 million euros, over half of which is generated by Fendi Casa, Luxury Living Group hopes to hit 149.5 million euros this year, maintaining export levels around 90%. 

In 30 years, Fendi's Italian-made home line has evolved, establishing a sober aesthetic that employs valuable materials and channels the codes of the brand –  such as the iconic double F logo designed by Karl Lagerfeld in 1975 – , while also offering an ever growing range of furniture, rugs, light fixtures, cushions and other homeware items. 

The line has expanded over the years with the launches of the Fendi Outdoor collection in 2009,  Toan Nguyen's Fendi Casa Contemporary collection in 2012, and Fendi Casa Icons, which has offered reissues of classic pieces and limited-edition products since 2013. The line has also engaged in a number of special projects and collaborations with renowned architects. 

The most recent of these collaborations saw Fendi Casa partner with French interior architect Thierry Lemaire,who is known for his refined minimalism and has designed a series of capsule collections for Fendi Casa since 2013. His work takes centre stage at Fendi Casa's 30th-anniversary celebrations taking place in its flagship showroom, which opened on Milan's prestigious via Montenapoleone in 2017, right next to the Fendi boutique.  

"I was contacted by Fendi Casa five years ago to create a vintage-inspired collection bringing together Italian elegance and sophistication, incredible materials, and French decorative arts skill. The collection works very well, and has seen a 10% sales increase every year. Over the last two years, furniture from the line has also been chosen to furnish Fendi boutiques", Thierry Lemaire told FashionNetwork.com. 

For Fendi Casa's 30th anniversary, visitors to the Milan Furniture Fair can admire the line's new collection in its flagship store on via Montenapoleone, including this season's standout piece: a long, marble table measuring more than four metres and supported by two large copper legs in the shape of flattened cylinders. 

Furthermore, Luxury Living has dedicated the windows of its Milanese store on via Durini to three of Fendi Casa's iconic products. The pieces have been reissued for the occasion and each represents a decade in the line's history, such as the leather "Cosima" chaise longue, a bestseller from Fendi Casa's 1994 collection.