At Milan Design Week 2026, fashion brands are telling us who they are and who they are for.
Fendi displays its latest interpretations of the iconic Baguette bag at its boutiques in Milan.
Playing on their home turf, Italian brands celebrate their historically significant role in the global fashion industry. At Milan Design Week 2026, they focus on the elements that first put them on the map; Loro Piana puts on an exhibition on pleating techniques at its Via Della Moscova headquarters, Giorgio Armani revisits its most iconic silhouettes under the second installment of the ARMANI/Archivio project, and the Gucci Memoria exhibition in the Brera Design District highlights the milestones of Gucci’s 105-year journey. As the industry is in flux, these exercises in establishing identities and announcing intentions are under more scrutiny.
This is especially the case for Fendi, spearheaded by its recently appointed creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri. What is Fendi’s fate under her stewardship? Based on her first Autumn/Winter ‘26 80-look collection, it would seem that Chiuri is leaning into the idea of celebrating women; she incorporated a striking tribute to the daughters of founder Edoardo Fendi, Alda, Carla, Paola, Franca and Anna Fendi. As a next step, she launches Fendi’s Baguette® 26424 Re-Edition line at Milan Design Week with an empowering message.
Maria Grazia Chiuri celebrates the Fendi Baguette’s 20th anniversary with the Baguette® 26424 Re-Edition line.
“To re-launch this bag, to multiply the versions, is to say that every woman can be what she wants. But above all, girls, because fashion is not just a market but a message for everyone, not just an object of desire, but an idea that propagates: personality does not win over beauty, personality is beauty,” she writes.
This collection commemorates the Baguette’s 30th anniversary; the design became an instant hit when it was introduced in 1997 for capturing the youthful energy of the late ‘90s. Its popularity skyrocketed once it became synonymous with Carrie Bradshaw, the ultimate It-girl and beloved titular character of Sex and the City, played by Sarah Jessica Parker. Revisiting the original 1997 design with softer construction and under-the-arm wearability, these 20 designs are colourful and full of personality, featuring special Re-Edition metal tags and special wooden box packaging, reminiscent of art crates and customised with stencil prints, fastened with a yellow canvas belt and metal logo buckle.
The Baguette® 26424 Re-Edition campaign is shot by Jo Ann Callis.
Chiuri shares the inspiration behind this collection: a passage from ‘A Beautiful Child’, Truman Capote’s essay and interview of Marilyn Monroe in 1955, published in his book Music for Chameleons (1980). On hearing that Monroe had a handful of fortune cookies, “those with little notes inside”, in her purse, Capote realised that he was given the rare opportunity to meet a different, more authentic version of the famous movie star. This anecdote embodies what is now called the ‘Marilyn Monroe effect’, in which a person can switch between different personas in the same way Monroe ‘turns on’ her confident, charismatic, on-screen persona.
Understanding that womanhood is all about playing different roles, this new line of Fendi Baguette bags allow for experimentation. “Personality is beauty. The greatest beauty, the freest: sparkling, severe, rigorous, crazy, flamboyant, chaotic, orderly, phosphorescent, crooked, exaggerated, rude, shameless,” says Chiuri.
