Fendi’s new bag is a playful take on the French loaf

Shopper bag, £1,520; shearling baguette pouches, £890 each; leather baguette bag, £2,850, all by Fendi

(Image credit: Photography by Sophie Gladstone, fashion by Jason Hughes)

published 20 October 2023

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In 1997, Silvia Venturini Fendi introduced the Fendi ‘Baguette’ handbag, a miniature shoulder bag named for the way it nestles under the arm – as one might carry the French loaf after an early morning trip to the boulangerie.

25 years on, as part of the designer’s A/W 2023 menswear collection for the Italian house, Venturini Fendi playfully revisited the handbag’s inspirations, with models carrying a gleefully surreal accessory: a French baguette, albeit here rendered in luxurious shearling.

Poking out from tote bags, grasped under the arm, or slung across the back as a case for an umbrella, it epitomised the irreverent approach Venturini Fendi brings to her menswear collections. This season, she conjured an after-dark mood, the collection’s languid silhouettes and swathes of shimmering embellishment recalling rollers discos and Studio 54, with the bread-shaped accessory providing an unexpected – but satiating – juxtaposition.

Fendi reinvents the baguette

Fendi A/W 2023 menswear baguette bag — One of the bread-shaped bags, as first shown at the house’s A/W 2023 runway show in January

The ‘Baguette’ handbag itself – which includes a number of iterations for men – remains Fendi’s most well-known accessory, endlessly riffed upon in the house’s collections in various sizes, colours and shapes. Last September, it celebrated its 25th anniversary with a blockbuster show at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom as part of the city’s fashion week.

A triumphant ode to the style, the runway show featured collaborations with Tiffany & Co, Marc Jacobs and the actress Sarah Jessica Parker – the latter canonised the Baguette with her role as Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City.

This article appears in the November 2023 Art Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

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Jack Moss is the Fashion Features Editor at Wallpaper*, joining the team in 2022. Having previously been the digital features editor at AnOther and digital editor at 10 and 10 Men magazines, he has also contributed to titles including i-D, Dazed, 10 Magazine, Mr Porter’s The Journal and more, while also featuring in Dazed: 32 Years Confused: The Covers, published by Rizzoli. He is particularly interested in the moments when fashion intersects with other creative disciplines – notably art and design – as well as championing a new generation of international talent and reporting from international fashion weeks. Across his career, he has interviewed the fashion industry’s leading figures, including Rick Owens, Pieter Mulier, Jonathan Anderson, Grace Wales Bonner, Christian Lacroix, Kate Moss and Manolo Blahnik.

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Sophie Gladstone - Photography

Fendi reinvents the baguette

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