kengo kuma reinterprets FENDI collection with japanese paper, woven bamboo & birch bark

Kengo Kuma and FENDI for SS24 mens collection

An architecture and fashion crossover takes place between Kengo Kuma and FENDI for the fashion house’s Spring/Summer 2024 menswear show. For the recent collection, Kuma unveils his radical iterations of FENDI’s Peekaboo, Baguette Soft Trunk, and FENDI Flow sneakers by constructing them in traditional washi paper, woven bamboo, birch bark, and Tuscan olivewood. His architectural flair for the collection comes from his reverence for ancient Japanese craftsmanship and raw natural materials that surface and materialize into bags and sneakers.

He was one of the first to understand the importance of building nature into architecture both inside and out,’ Silvia Venturini Fendi, the FENDI’s Artistic Director, states. The statement has been complemented by Kengo Kuma’s words where he says that nature and craft have always been at the center of his work as an architect and a designer. ‘When Fendi asked me to reflect on their bags and shoes, I thought of them like small architectural projects on a human scale,’ the architect notes.

Kengo Kuma | images courtesy of FENDI

Kengo Kuma in FENDI’S FLORENCE Factory

Set at the new FENDI Factory in the Tuscan hills in Florence, FENDI’s SS24 runway finds itself in the middle of the production and manufacturing house of the maison. As the models walk, artisans go on about their craftwork who are expected to construct 35 to 40 percent of the Maison’s leather goods in the new factory. When Kengo Kuma’s collection shows up, the omnipresence of workwear vibes ensues as the gritty textures and laidback styles of his series unfold in natural and raw materials.

Kengo Kuma’s single-handled FENDI Peekaboo resembles a fashionable toolbox with its basket-shaped design and alludes to the earthly materials he often draws up from the chafed look of the handbag. His Baguette version achieves sharper edges and a lighter shade flecked with wood chips. Undulating lines and soft curves punctuate his sneakers collection, at times more underscored through the filaments of what may seem 3D-printed threads around the bottom part of the shoes. Somehow, the sinewy branches call upon some of his architectural exteriors such as his new sculptural tower in Vancouver and archaeological park in Albania.

Kengo Kuma architects FENDI collection with japanese paper, woven bamboo, and birch bark