ILARIA VENTURINI FENDI'S DREAM
Ilaria Venturini Fendi has fashion in her blood; her mother is one of the five famous Fendi sisters and she grew up around the Fendi ateliers in Rome. Yet she also has farming in her blood, her late father having been a man of the land. Venturini Fendi herself is a champion of organic farming at her own property near Rome where her design studio is also housed.
It was through farming; a project with bee keepers from Cameroon in West Africa, that Venturini Fendi first came to Africa. She joined the ITC’s Ethical Fashion Programme to be confident that everything she was doing was fair, and since then, an on-going collaboration has grown considerably through production in Kenya. This has lead to significant employment opportunities. Venturini Fendi is determined to do fashion in a modern way. Her Carmina Campus label, now available at top independent stores from Milan to New York, London to Tokyo, has caught the imagination of the fashion world for its use of recycled materials in imaginative ways.
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Carmina Campus and the Ethical Fashion Programme.
Ilaria Venturini Fendi continues to look for new ways to collaborate with African artisans. A recent example included the ground-breaking Milanese concept store, 10 Corso Como. Leftovers from the store's signature fabrics were sent to Nairobi where they were upcycled into linings for a limited edition of Carmina Campus bags. While we usually try to work only with local, recycled materials, this provided a welcome opportunity for craftspeople to hone their skills on far finer fabric than can be found locally.
Since joining with the Ethical Fashion programme, Carmina Campus designs have incorporated old blankets, steam cleaned and given new life, as well as nylon tenting re-imagined as lining for bags. Other materials include fabric off-cuts that would otherwise be wasted, bottle tops and even plastic, with Venturini Fendi working closely with the Ethical Fashion Programme to find uses for plastic bottles otherwise dumped perilously on the slums.
A first collaboration encouraged women who were skilled at embroidery to create vivid picture panels; these attached to leather bags in the Carmina Campus atelier in Italy. Since then, Venturini Fendi has entrusted her sophisticated designs to an increasing number of East African craftswomen whose skills have been raised as a result. Intricate patchworks and elaborate applique flowers are among designs which have pushed marginalized women to new levels of expertise and thus increased their income significantly.
Simple-looking stitching and screen-printing has to be perfect to comply with the exacting standards Venturini Fendi expects as one of the Fendi clan, this quality achieved and maintained thanks to the Hub in Nairobi. Over 70 slum dwellers currently have full-time employment thanks to the Carmina Campus range which is exported as far afield as Australia. Best selling bags include oversized totes, iPad pouches and purses all bearing the Ethical Fashion Programme mantra, “Not Charity, Just Work.”
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"It is a pleasure to see African craftsmanship being utilized to create fashionable products that can compete in a global marketplace."
Armand Limnander, Fashion Features Director, W
Video - Carmina Campus recycles in Kenya and Uganda
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