The Fendi catwalk shows are always one of the most exciting and glamorous events of the entire fashion season.
For years the Italian fashion house has sent the biggest supermodels of the day down the catwalk, as well as pumped its front row full of the starriest celebrities.
This week its spring/summer 2024 collection was no exception. Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cara Delevingne, Demi Moore and Naomi Watts were among the mix of high fashion and Hollywood royalty in attendance.
Not to mention Kate Moss, who bowled up with partner Nikolai von Bismarck, sending social media into meltdown after it was presumed the couple had gone their separate ways. So far, so Fendi.
But there was also something else afoot this time around – and that was the clothes they were wearing. Because if you look closely at the outfits worn by those on the front row – including actresses Demi Moore and Christina Ricci and model Amber Valletta – you’ll notice many of them were in next season’s designs. In other words, the exact clothes the design house was about to unveil on the catwalk.
This signals a real switch in how fashion brands are working their celebrity front rows (Frows); pushing them harder than ever before.
Linda Evangelista, Naomi Watts, Gwendoline Christie, Christina Ricci, Amber Valletta, Demi Moore, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Nikolai von Bismarck attend the Fendi Spring Summer 2024 fashion show on September 20
If you look closely at the outfits worn by those on the front row – including actresses Demi Moore and Christina Ricci and model Amber Valletta – you’ll notice many of them were in next season’s designs
Though celebrity Frows have always garnered as much attention as the actual catwalk show itself, once upon a time celebrities who were invited to sit centre stage would be dressed in the brand’s current season, thereby igniting demand for the designer’s in-store clothes.
So why put them in next season’s outfits? Easy. It’s a genius way of shoring up demand for future collections and thus creating a more stable economic forecast with a deluge of pre-orders. Because if there’s one thing fashion loves more than the buzz of the new, it’s stylish celebrities wearing the new new.
Celebrities on the front row have always been an essential part of any designer’s marketing playbook with most brands having a VIP or talent manager to coordinate such things.
This is because celebrities are more important in influencing public appetite and shifting clothes than the fashion editors and buyers who sit alongside them. (Demi Moore immediately showed off her and Amber Valletta’s Fendi looks to her 4.8 million Instagram followers.)
The reality, however, is you need all three: celebrities to ignite the dream; the Press to sell the dream over a longer period; and buyers so you can actually sell the collection in store.
Designers will usually have around 100 front-row seats to allocate.
And it’s a bitter scrum for every one of those seats. Editors-in-chief will battle it out with one another for a golden ticket; the biggest influencers will hustle hard to make sure they make the grade, while buyers from the biggest retailers, such as Yoox’s Alison Loehnis, who oversees luxury sites Net-a-Porter, Mr Porter and The Outnet, will ensure they have good enough seats to see the collections clearly.
But it’s the 15 or so seats slap bang in the middle that are reserved especially for celebrities.
And who those celebrities are, as well as how they behave while in the front row, is crucial for the design house.
Firstly, celebrity Frows ideally need to get on, since they will be sitting cheek by jowl. (Trust me, those seats are minuscule!) This is so that photographers can capture the ‘power gang’ in one easy shot, just before the lights go down and the show begins.
If the celebrities on the front row are naturally friends, as is the case with the majority of Fendi’s guests, it adds an extra frisson of excitement and gossip.
How those celebrities get those seats is, of course, a complex and sometimes sharp-elbowed tale. Up-and-coming stars (as well as has-beens) understand the power and currency of being photographed on the right front row and will get their agent to lobby hard for a golden ticket. (I have witnessed several ‘do you know who I am?’ moments at London Fashion Week.)
Dame Anna Wintour, Vogue Global Editor at Large Hamish Bowles and Rachel Weisz attend the Burberry Spring Summer 2024
Joel Edgerton, Christine Centenera, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Jason Statham attend the Burberry Spring Summer 2024
Benedetta Porcaroli, Anas Demoustier, Vincent Cassel, Scarlett Johansson, Wes Anderson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Emma Watson, Amanda Gorman, Hunter Schafer and Letitia Wright attend the Prada Spring/Summer 2024
Usually, however, the relationship is based on a genuine friendship with the brand’s artistic director, such as Harry Styles had with former Gucci artistic director, Alessandro Michele; an historic friendship with the brand such as Rachel Weisz has with Burberry; or an ongoing relationship with both brand and designer.
I know celebrities and socialites who tip up to a major brand’s show because they are simply ‘looked after’ by the brand throughout the year in the form of gifted clothes and bags or invitations to dinners and events. With some brands, an exchange of money is also not out of the question.
Fendi’s starriest of Frows is most probably a mix of old and new friends. Naomi Campbell, for example, is both a friend of Fendi’s artistic director, Kim Jones, as well as the face of the brand. Thus, attendance at all fashion shows would almost certainly be written into her contract.
Christina Ricci, meanwhile, appears to be a relatively new friend who has worn Jones’s designs to both the Emmys and this year’s Met Gala.
What is clear is that the 50-year old Jones has one of the starriest little black books in all of fashion.
The British designer is an alumnus of Central Saint Martins in London and led Louis Vuitton menswear for over seven years, as well as Dior Homme, prior to joining Fendi in 2020, where he took over from Karl Lagerfeld.
As such, he not only knows everyone (and is loved by everyone for his fun and down-to-earth personality) but also understands the power dynamic between fashion and celebrity.
Jones has known most of the 1990s supermodels for years and has regularly worked with Demi Moore, even casting her in his debut Fendi couture collection in January 2021.
(To understand the complicated nature of fashion networks, the pair actually met when Nikolai von Bismarck photographed Moore for a Dior book back in 2019, where she wore one of Kim Jones’s menswear tuxedos.)
Kylie Kardashian is spotted as a model walks the runway at the Prada fashion show during the Milan Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024
Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour (centre) and British Vogue editor-in-chief, Edward Enninful (right) attend the Emporio Armani fashion show during the Milan Fashion Week
Bella Thorne (centre) is seen on the front row of the Roberto Cavalli fashion show during the Milan Fashion Week Womenswear Fall/Winter 2023/2024 on February 22
Other designers flex their celebrity Frows in much the same way. At this week’s London Fashion Week, Burberry’s artistic director, Daniel Lee, like Jones a graduate of Central Saint Martins, made sure he had a front row that was arguably more attention-grabbing than the clothes he put on the catwalk.
Rather than just 15 celebrity seats, a Burberry insider reveals the brand dressed around 100 VIPs – everyone from actress Jodie Comer to musician Damon Albarn and model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley – who turned up to support the designer.
While most were dressed head-to-toe in Burberry’s current collection – Lee’s first for the brand – Kylie Minogue and Rachel Weisz were both in next season Burberry.
Not since Christopher Bailey – Burberry’s creative director between 2004 to 2018 and at the time one of the most well-connected men in fashion – has Burberry’s front row attracted so many stars willing to showcase the brand.
Even Anna Wintour, who famously wears her own clothes to every show, wore a Burberry dress – again from next year’s spring/summer collection.
Whether any of the starry front rows at Paris Fashion Week next week will follow Burberry’s and Fendi’s lead and dress their front row in next season designs remains to be seen.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if the VIP managers at Dior, Louis Vuitton and Saint Laurent are at this very minute couriering spring/summer 2024 outfits to their starriest guests.
