Video: Fendi gets historic in Rome

With a €2.18m donation, Italian fashion house Fendi will work with the City of Rome to help restore one of the capital’s most adored monuments — the Trevi Fountain.

Fendi’s artistic director Karl Largerfeld, in Rome for the launch, announced in a video released to mark the occasion, “I’m very happy because I think it’s a very good idea. I think the fashion world is lucky because a few labels like Fendi and others do well enough that they can pay for this kind of restoration.”

Much of Italy’s fashion industry is centred around Milan; Rome-based label Fendi has bucked the trend ever since it was founded in 1926.

“Rome is the perfect place for a designer to get inspiration – it’s like walking in an open air museum,” said the brand’s head of accessories, Silvia Venturini Fendi. For Fendi the Trevi fountains themselves represent “the creativity of Italian culture.”

According to the city mayor Gianni Alemanno, this is not a sponsorship project, this is a “real, unique, authentic donation to the City of Rome”. 

The 20-month restoration project will be the longest and largest since they were first completed in 1762. With an estimated 3,000 euros in coins thrown into the fountain every day (set to bring good luck and a return to Rome) they receive plenty of wear and tear, but the money goes to a supermarket for the needy. 

The next project for Fendi for Fountains will be the upkeep of the four late Renaissance Fountains of Piazza Quattro Fontane.

Video – Fendi unveils the ‘Fendi for Fountains’ project.

JT