FENDI returns to Design Miami/ with Fendibackfrontals, a spellbinding collaboration with Paris and Berlin-based transdisciplinary studio BLESS.

Reflecting BLESS’s months-long conversations and interactions with FENDI craftspeople, staff, and leadership—including the always inspiring Silvia Fendi—the immersive installation offers a unique behind-the-scenes look at the Italian fashion house’s craft-driven, family-forward creative culture.

Visitors are invited to explore the space, which is designed to evoke FENDI’s headquarters and workshops, following a winding path through trompe l'oeil and rosewood-paneled walls that were realized together with Fendi Casa. Along the way, visitors will discover a striking collection of conceptual yet functional seating, table, and storage designs—all crafted by FENDI artisans using the lux materials that define the 98-year-old FENDI brand.

Avid culture consumers have been following BLESS’s provocations for a quarter century, and yet even those most familiar with the studio are challenged to concisely define its work, which occupies a fascinating frontierland at the intersection of art, design, fashion, and architecture. BLESS’s own website explains simply, “BLESS is a visionary substitute to make the near future worth living for.”

While the studio has continuously released a new body of work each year in addition to regular collaborations with an array of brands and institutions, BLESS founders Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag have famously maintained a low profile, preferring to stay small and focused on projects rooted in values of independence, simplicity, and design-for-better-living.

For this collaboration, FENDI invited BLESS to dive deep into the fashion house’s inner sanctum, to explore its offices and workshops and get to know the people who contribute to FENDI’s creative culture at all levels. BLESS emerged from the research impressed by FENDI’s enduring commitment to quality, craftsmanship, and timelessness, which has been cultivated in an environment that values family, human relationships, and women leaders.

In the end, Fendibackfrontals feels like a home—one that's been furnished with intriguing interpretations of FENDI’s most celebrated contributions to fashion, especially its innovative and mindful approaches to leather and fur. Highlights include a dreamy wallscape depicting FENDI’s palazzo in Rome; surrealist brooms and detergent bottles cloaked in recycled fur off-cuts; an intricate intarsia blanket made of shearling, printed leather, and Merino wool; and a classic Peekaboo bag magically transformed into a humble shipping carton. What an unforgettable way to experience the FENDI brand from the inside out.