CUT AND POLISH

Born into fashion royalty, Delfina Delettrez Fendi debuts the first-ever haute joaillerie line for the Italian house bearing her name

-  Delfina Delettrez Fendi

THE SCENE AT Paris's Palais Brongniart on a gleaming July afternoon is busy but not chaotic; organized but not rigid. The palatial neoclassical building, which once housed the Paris Stock Exchange, is being transformed for Fendi's fall-winter 2022 haute couture show. In the days leading up to it, they've been using the space as an office and atelier. The lobby is reserved for staffers dressed in black, checking in models and members of the show's production team and granting them all-building access with Fendi-emblazoned wristbands. In one sprawling room with wood floors and vaulted ceilings, Silvia Venturini Fendi-whose grandparents Adele and Edoardo founded the Italian house in 1925, and who currently serves as artistic director of menswear, accessories, and children-sits behind a table next to Kim Jones, artistic director of Fendi's couture and women's collections. Shelves of crystal-embellished shoes line one wall, racks of couture garments are planted along another. From behind the table, which is covered with papers, photos, and several Fendi bags, Silvia and Jones watch models walk about the room, examining the fit of the pieces they're wearing. If you didn't know the secret Fendi has been keeping for the past year, you'd assume one of the hand-beaded gowns was the collection's pièce de résistance. But down a long hallway, in a much smaller, much more discrete room, there's something else.