How Costanza Vallese distilled Fendi's codes into a collection of furniture for Design Miami

Over the past dozen years, Italian fashion house Fendi has enriched its canon with experiments from some of the world’s most exciting creatives. Invited to play with the maison’s codes, each participant, ranging from Peter Mabeo to Sabine Marcelis, has created an annual display at Design Miami, combining furnishings with Fendi icons to offer a fresh view on the brand’s history.

Costanza Vallese interprets Fendi for Design Miami 2025

This year’s collaboration also marks an opportunity to celebrate the fashion house’s centenary, and, most importantly, the people at the heart of Fendi. ‘I was thinking of the Fendi sisters as a collective energy of creative women who embodied elegance and also strength,’ says Constanza Vallese, the Milan-based Argentinian designer tasked with this year’s display for Design Miami 2025. Her Fonderia Fendi installation will showcase objects created with five different Italian specialists, in a celebration of Fendi and a demonstration of the power of craft.

When she was invited by curator Dan Thawley to participate, Vallese had already been observing Fendi for a while, admiring ‘its ability to blend timeless tradition with something bold’. But it wasn’t until she visited its Rome HQ and workshops that she truly understood the craftsmanship and innovation behind every piece. ‘I think Fendi transcends fashion, creating a broader artistic language that made the project feel natural and aligned with my own practice,’ she says.

Vallese’s own work sits at the intersection of art, design, jewellery and craft. The objects she creates bear a trace of the hand that made them, and embody a sense of artisanal integrity. Flowers are recurring motifs, appearing in ceramic surfaces or textiles. Cross-pollination has been built into her practice from the start, evident from her otherworldly floral jewellery and cutlery created with Orit Elhanati, and her collaboration with Super Yaya on a collection of bronze furniture and textile adornments.

With Fonderia Fendi, she takes this multidisciplinary, collaborative approach to a higher level, calling on four creators that embody some of Italy’s most striking craft excellence. For bronze, she worked with the Milan-based Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, a long-term collaborator that she chose for its ability to give ‘a sense of softness and fluidity to such a strong material’. For glass, she enlisted Murano legend Barovier & Toso, while ceramics were entrusted to Officine Saffi, a non-profit studio whose approach blends tradition and experimentation. Rug maker CC-Tapis worked on bespoke tapestries with Vallese, who also collaborated with Fendi on leather elements, the first time she had worked with the material.

‘From the beginning, I felt the story of the five Fendi sisters held a strong symbolic weight. The idea of working with five Italian ateliers across five disciplines felt like a natural extension of that narrative,’ she says. ‘It became the conceptual backbone of the project: a modern homage to tradition, collaboration, and the enduring creativity of the house with my personal aesthetics.’

The objects she created are like elegant whispers that reflect both her experimental work and Fendi’s heritage, as well as something new, a creative investigation of techniques and materials. The five materials – bronze, leather, glass, ceramic and woven wool – are distinct expressions of their own craft, but they also come together in a series of objects, including a bronze chair, bench and room divider enriched by Fendi’s leather; tiled seats or plinths embossed with floral motifs and a take on the house’s logo; and mouth-blown vases layered with gold-flecked details and floral textures.

Fendi’s codes are present throughout, most meaningfully in the recreation of its Selleria stitch as an exaggerated motif. ‘It has such historical significance that it felt like a strong detail to bring into my work,’ says Vallese. ‘It’s a celebration of the human hand and the time it takes to make something with care. I wanted to carry that idea into the bronze collection, creating a tactile contrast between soft and solid, and bringing that sense of intimacy into the sculptural realm.’

Another key element is the colour palette. Vallese reproduced Fendi’s signature yellow as a pale shade, combined with blue to express a brightness informed by the Miami sunlight. The colours also feature on Vallese’s limited-edition ‘Peekaboo ISeeU’ bag, in Sorbetto yellow and Anice blue leather, and the lily patterns woven into pale yellow reliefs by CC-Tapis.

‘These hues helped set the tone for the entire installation,’ she explains. ‘In many ways, the project was about translating the codes of craft, femininity, materiality and colour into my visual language, and creating a world where softness meets structure, and where every detail, no matter how subtle, speaks to care, emotion and intention.

‘It’s an Italian salotto – a salon,’ she concludes, referencing Italy’s pavilion at the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts. ‘We thought of a soft, calm space to contrast with the hardness of glass, ceramic and bronze. It will be playful like the Miami light, the kind of space that invites people to sit and enjoy it.’

‘Fonderia Fendi’ will be on show from 2-7 December at Design Miami