ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories: Graphically Coloured Mink by FENDI FW 2013/14

Minimalism and maximalism taken to extremes. Black and colors that sang with brightness. Severity and lashings of opulence. What something is, and what its exact opposite is, was the overriding theme at a powerful, punkish, and sometimes playful fall collection from Fendi, the fur house co-designed by Karl Lagerfeld and Silvia Venturini Fendi. “Exactly! Fendi has always been a study in contrasts,” she said backstage as her creative co-conspirator was swept along in a wave of cameras, lights, and questions in every language, which he answered in every language. “There are natural colors and others that feel techno, furs like mink and fox against synthetics, an idea of primitivism and futurism.”

Silvia might have added that the collection also positively rocked with the attitude of the New Wave eighties, from the models’ teased fake mohawks all the way down past their striped furs and tough-girl black leather slashed skirts to their pumps and bootees resting on conical mirrored heels. As to those all-important bags, Fendi reworked some of its Selleria classics, in everything from striped mink that matched the coat it was being carried with to simplest-of-the-simple, chicest-of-the-chic: a black leather handheld purse suspended from an untreated, natural leather strap. (Oh, and this is where the playfulness came in; some of the bags swung with little furry Muppet-y creatures as pendant adornments.)

Fendi captured the prevailing mood of Milan, which so far has been a sculptural, streamlined, and occasionally scaled-up look imbued with a certain harder, darker edge. And, because it’s the house it is, everything was beautifully rendered, particularly the furs, which went from mink coats graphically colour blocked in shades of midnight-blue, red, and white (with furry sunglasses to match!) to the useful, everyday, wonderful-for-winter notion of a collegiate scarf, here wound round a roll-neck sweater worn with cropped pants cut with a gently rounded volume. There were other stripped-down ideas on how to showcase the house’s artisanal skills, with athletically inclined pieces like a soft, oversize shearling and mink jacket colored shocking-pink or electric-blue, worn with such “basics” remember, this is Fendi we are talking about as a white crocodile wrap skirt. And one more reason for all that black; it provided the starkest and simplest base to showcase the many, many statement coats that Fendi like so many others this season is placing a big emphasis on.