“I like it when you’re in a public space and someone asks you what you’re wearing,” Kim Jones enthuses when I ask him about test-driving his first Fendi fragrance and the response the house’s artistic director of couture and womenswear has clocked so far. “You know that scent is popular. I’ve had that in restaurants, at events, in the office…everywhere!
“I’ve had a lot of questions and reactions when I wear Prima Terra—a lot of people have been asking me what I’m wearing, but I couldn’t reveal it,” he continues, naming his fragrance that launches next month in a suite of seven scents made for seven standout Fendi personalities. “Now they’ll know when they see it.”
This family of fragrances bottles the Roman maison’s biggest personalities via a trio of noses—Quentin Bisch, Fanny Bal, and Anne Flipo—who worked with Fendi’s trio of artistic directors, Jones, Silvia Venturini Fendi (accessories and menswear), and Delfina Delettrez Fendi (jewelry). Jones’s Prima Terra scent is inspired by the British designer’s formative years in Africa, for example, with earthy notes like rainy soil and oak moss that Bisch helped spin into a liquid savannah.
When I ask how Jones collaborated with the rest of the team, he mentions that the conversation started with the different generations of Fendi and then moved to the chosen member of each person’s family. “Each fragrance represents the figure within the group and their context,” he says of Delettrez Fendi’s twins, Tazio and Dardo Vascellari Delettrez Fendi, inspiring La Baguette (the scent, not the iconic bag) with notes of bread, butter, and sugar, or the notes of apricot and patchouli in Anna Fendi’s Dolce Bacio designed to evoke a kiss from her mother, Adele Casagrande Fendi, the house’s matriarch. “We love the idea of representing personalities in a bottle,” says Jones.
The Roman maison turns 100 next year, a pillar of longevity in the industry, and Jones is maintaining his own life-enhancing rituals. “I spend a lot of time taking care of myself,” he says. “I love facial massages, I love to meditate, walk, think, and be outside immersed in nature, which is probably why my fragrance is so related to nature. Nature is what calls me the most at present.”
And then there’s always sleep. “Sleep is the key to everything—I sound boring when I talk about it, but I love sleeping!” Jones admits. I remind him of a moment I loved in his 2022 conversation with Vogue’s wonderful editor at large Hamish Bowles when he declared he “can’t sleep in a mess” and prefers a clean space. “I have to have my own bedding no matter where I am in the world so that I feel like I’m getting into my own bed,” he reveals, noting that he, too, is into night bathing. “I always have to clean and wash myself before I go to sleep, and I try to be in bed at the same time every night. It doesn’t always work, but I try.”
Rest and care build a solid foundation for creativity, after all, and Jones agrees that in 2024 the worlds of wellness, beauty, and fashion are more intertwined than ever. “Even more so today, people are keen on exploring every sense,” he says. “From scent to cloth, everything has to be more hand-in-hand.” And atmosphere and materials were considered, like the refillable glass bottle with curves of Roman architecture that houses Prima Terra now. Even without the flashy brass and iconic FF logo, though, it held a power that others noticed: “Delfina likes my fragrance, and when we received the samples, she took my bottles,” Jones says. A “very special bond” exists between the two creative directors, he says. “I found it funny.”
Fendi Fragrances will be available in Fendi boutiques and at fendi.com from June 20, 2024.
