Home News Carla Fendi, the backbone of the historical brand, has been extinguished.

19 June 2017

Carla Fendi, the backbone of the historical brand, has been extinguished.

It was extinguished yesterday at 80 years Carla Fendi, the Fourth of the Five Sisters of the Maison was 80 years old and was ill for a long time. The entrance into the family company in the 1950s, the conquest of the American market, the passion for music and art. The association with the Festival of Spoleto and then the birth of the foundation in its name

The stylist together with the sisters Paola, Franca, Anna and Alda led to international success the family brand currently owned by LVMH. Honorary president of the Fendi Group, the Roman designer had been a long-arm right of Karl Lagerfeld, for over 50 years creative director of the brand. In 2007 he inaugurated the Fondazione Carla Fendi to support the arts, crafts and social.

Carla Fendi enters the family company in the late 1950s, after completing the classical studies, alongside the sisters Paola, Anna, Franca and Alda. "We are like the five fingers of a hand, always said our mother, each has its function" he loved repeating, to make it understand how his sisters also had their share of responsibility and merit of the success of the company. His training covers different sectors ranging from administration to production, from sales to design. In the 1960s he also devoted himself to public relations, aiming at the most difficult market, the American one: a strategy that rewards it with the success that contributes to the worldwide recognition of the fame of the signature Fendi

The company continues to grow and develop, Carla Fendi continues to collaborate in the creation but deals specifically with the communication, the press office, the advertising, the image, the events related to the brand. It is in this area that, in the 1980s, matured a great attention to Spoleto and its festival. It was the years of maestro Giancarlo Menotti and while the festival of the two worlds became one of the most important events of Italian culture, Carla Fendi, in her role as head of communication, chooses to tie the brand Fendi to the event. An engagement that matures from year to year and consolidates through friendship with Menotti.

The Fondazione Carla Fendi was founded in 2007 with the aim of contributing and assisting in preserving cultural heritage and values of the past and ensuring its continuity and growth in the future. It works in the field of art, literature, cinema, fashion, environment and social. With this spirit, the foundation has promoted events and supported projects in the field of environmental defence, the publication of literary works, works of art and books. He also set up a prize that in 2016 went to Antonio Pappo. In addition to the Festival of the two Worlds, the foundation since 2010 supports the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia as a patron member. He restored the Teatro Caio Meliso in Spoleto and supported the creation of the crib created in December 2015 by Giosetta Fiori in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Montesanto in Rome, the church of the artists where the custom was continued, born in the Fifties with Monsignor Ennio Francia, to involve the artists in the realization of sacred works. They are "operations of pure patronage-specified Carla Fendi-no sponsorships".

"My husband drove me to become a patron," he told talking about his life companion, Candide Spurs, died in 2013 at 83 years. Former pharmacist born in Tuscany, he had abandoned his career by marrying "his Carla" and entering the clan Fendi as the "husband counselor"-for 55 years-for the design and organization of events. In 2010 the couple had celebrated the golden wedding with the orchestra of Renzo Arbore and 400 guests. A year after the death of her husband, Carla Fendi had wanted to restore the two side altars of the presbytery in the church of Pieve di Santa Maria Assunta in Piancastagnaio, in the province of Siena, hometown of the consort.

"I think very much of the importance and value of beauty as a culture and training-he had said in an interview a few years ago-in my experience of life and work I have nourished of aesthetic beauties, as a costume and evolution of social. Then, this respect for the beauty I have dedicated to the artistic beauties that surround us: the beautiful as culture and culture as lifeblood. And as happiness, because it raises the spirit, it is oxygen in a world that overwhelms us daily. "This is my creed, and in this I put all my energies."