Fendi Turns to Carrà, and the Marche's Workshops Read the Signal

Maria Grazia Chiuri presented her Fendi collection in Milan this week, a show the Guardian described as full of diaphanous dresses and visible bras, built around the figure of Raffaella Carrà, the Italian pop singer and television presenter it called an 'incredible feminist' of the 1970s. Chiuri, the Guardian noted, has been working differently since she left Paris to return to her native Rome.

The collection is a Roman house's reading of a television icon, and it sits at the far end of a supply chain that runs through the Marche. The region's shoe and leather districts — Fermo and Macerata above all — have spent decades as contractors and component-makers for Italian luxury, work that rarely carries a label of its own.

According to the Guardian, Chiuri said she has 'less of a uniform these days', a remark the paper tied to her move back to Rome. For the workshops along the Adriatic, the more useful question is not the silhouette but the order book that follows a well-received show.