“One letter F in a repetition that acts like a wave, it comes out and then gets closer to the skin,” says Delfina Delettrez Fendi. “And that’s where the stones are placed. Where the jewel is closer to the skin and touches the skin.” Delettrez Fendi, whose grandparents Adele and Edoardo Fendi established their eponymous business in 1925 with premises on Rome’s central Via del Plebiscito, is describing the design and make-up of her Undarum necklace. Part of a set that also counts a bracelet, a pair of drop earrings, and a cocktail ring, the collier is set with white diamonds and dust-pink spinels.
Undarum forms part of Triptych, Fendi’s first complete high jewellery collection. Delettrez Fendi, who founded her own jewellery brand in 2007, formally joined Fendi in 2020 as artistic director of jewellery. The brand’s cruise 2023 collection, presented last September, oered a first taste of what Fendi high jewellery could look like when Delettrez Fendi added a single set named Flavus to the line-up. Triptych, this latest foray into the category, comprises 31 pieces, all unveiled during the brand’s autumn/winter 2023 haute couture show in Paris this July.
In a nod to the maison’s Roman roots, when presenting his haute couture collection inside the Palais Brongniart, Kim Jones made a runway of Italian marble part of his set. But back at Fendi’s design studios in Italy, it had been sapphires, rubies, and diamonds – and not marble – that had inspired Jones’ creations. “He worked his collection as a template based on the high jewellery collection,” explains Delettrez Fendi. Some small treasures presented that day: a striking Cravate necklace, a Gravitus double ring – both dotted with white diamonds and pink sapphires –, and a Virdis ring with a pale green sapphire for a centre gem. The ring is one of four Collector rings, a quartet that also includes bands topped with a yellow diamond or a powdery pink Padparadscha sapphire.
Sapphires feature throughout Delettrez Fendi’s collection, as do pointers to the heritage brand’s emblems. The graphic ‘FF’ escutcheon is at times drawn in baguette-cut diamonds, a tribute to Fendi’s iconic 1997 Baguette bag, designed by Delettrez Fendi’s mother Silvia Venturini Fendi. Elsewhere, gemstones in tones of yellow are a reference to Fendi’s signature colour, in place since Fendi first made its parchment leather in the 1930s.
Those yellow-accented Triptych creations form part of Gioiello Giallo [yellow jewel], one of the collection’s three thematic chapters. Gioiello Giallo includes the geometric FFluctus parure. Its focal point is a necklace set with baguette- and brilliant-cut white and yellow diamonds. Delettrez Fendi’s take on the classic tennis bracelet also features. Hers adds a sprightly coloured yellow diamond to traditional white stones.
A second chapter, Roma Rosa is an interpretation of the clothing designs by Kim Jones – who joined Fendi as artistic director of womenswear in 2020 – and Silvia Venturini Fendi, in charge of menswear and accessories. Roma Rosa groups a trio of sets sparkling and glowing with powder-hued spinels and sapphires. Working with the brand’s in-house gemmologist, Delettrez Fendi selected gems whose colours aligned with the faded tones of Roman mosaics, sculptures, and marbles.
Next up: Bianco Brilliante. A study of white diamonds, the chapter is built around mesh-like jewels. A Catena chain necklace is matched with a bracelet, a ring, and a pair of earrings; all four designs glisten with white diamonds and all four have a second-skin fit, adapted to its wearer. Concluding, Delettrez Fendi says: “There is an emotional relationship that I have with the jewellery in the collection that I hope the women who will eventually wear it will have too.”
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