Fendi Set

Kim Jones took over as head of couture and womenswear at Fendi in September 2020, a change that opened a new chapter for the Italian house. This book traces how the early twentieth-century circle of British writers, thinkers and painters known as the Bloomsbury Set informed his work there. Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell are among the figures whose ideas shaped the collection and the way he developed it.

Photographs by Nikolai von Bismarck follow the places linked to both Bloomsbury and Fendi. The route begins in England at Charleston House, Knole and Sissinghurst Castle, moves to the Paris haute couture world, and ends in Rome at the Villa Medici and Villa Borghese, where the two histories meet. The images use several techniques, including Polaroid, conventional film and Super-8 stills, a mix that echoes the experimental methods of the Bloomsbury circle while presenting Jones's creations.

Jones's recurring muses, among them Christy Turlington, Demi Moore, Gwendoline Christie, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell, bring the contemporary side of the story into view. Letters, diary entries and passages from Bloomsbury members sit alongside the photographs.

The book is aimed at readers interested in fashion, literature and photography.