Fendi 25th Anniversary Baguette Collection

Lights, Camera, Wands!

If the "It" bag around 1997 hadn't already come back into fashion, it will be now, thanks to the brand genius of Fendi Creative Director Kim Jones.

He pulled down the curtain and pulled out all the stops Friday night in front of a packed Hammerstein Ballroom, with Carrie Bradshaw herself, Sarah Jessica Parker, seated next to Kim Kardashian, a few feet away from 90s supe Kate Moss, cheering on mini-me Lily Grace Moss-Hack as they open the show.

Parker put the prop on the map in "Sex and the City," in an episode where she uttered the now famous phrase "it's not a bag, it's a wand".

Stéphane Feugère/WWD

In Jones' hands, it's not just a bag, it's a collection reminiscent of 90s streetwear. Brightly colored boiler suits, fleece vests, sweatshirts, bucket hats, beanies, gators, socks, clogs and more have been tricked out with wand and logo-inspired cargo pockets Fendi "FF". No doubt it'll all be gobbled up at retail when it goes on sale next month, though the tulle layered seam, sequined slips and bias-cut dresses (Precious Lee's, for example) could have been executed with precision. more refined.

New versions of the current bag are available in Tiffany Blue, Swarovski crystal covered or hand molded Sterling silver; transformed into fanny packs, backpacks or cute nano dangling from belt loops.

The unique collection follows the bonding trend that spawned Gucci x Adidas and Burberry x Supreme, for n cite just two. But Fendi kept it all in the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton family by bringing in Marc Jacobs, whose rebellious spirit of '90s downtown New York was obviously on Jones's mind, even if he was something little masked by current commercialism. (To that end, the Fendi Baguette collection runway was already rolling on a huge video billboard in Herald Square when guests walked out.)

Fendi Ready-to-Wear Spring 2023 Giovanni Giannoni/WWD

But logomania didn't start with today's big luxury brands. Although he may be in a calmer moment in his career now, Jacobs helped usher in the era of collaboration fever at Louis Vuitton, only with artists like Richard Prince, Stephen Sprouse and Yayoi Kusama, rather than with another fashion brand.

Still, one couldn't help looking at Jacobs' designs with nostalgia, for having so many d imagination — the fanciful...