Carla Fendi, obituary: fashion designer who turned a small family firm into a worldwide powerhouse

One of five sisters who inherited the family's fashion house, Fendi was the mastermind behind the company's communications and marketing strategy

Fendi in 2009: she was visionary, ambitious and driven, according to her niece (AFP/Getty)

Carla Fendi was one of the five sisters who turned their family’s small leather-working company into the international fashion phenomenon that is Fendi. Nicknamed “The General”, Carla was the public face of the company, responsible for its overall operations and for communications and marketing, while her sisters each had their own specialist areas within the business.

Fendi owed its origins to Carla’s mother, Adele Casagrande, who had run a small leather workshop close to Rome’s Piazza Venezia since 1918. She and Edoardo Fendi married in 1925, opened a boutique together and lived in the apartment upstairs. Carla was the fourth of their daughters, born in Rome in 1937. She had fond memories of growing up around her parents’ creations. "Accessories were our first toys", she would later recall.

When the five sisters – Paola, Anna, Franca, Carla and Alda – became involved in the running of their parents’ company in 1964, they brought a new wave of creativity. They moved Fendi to the Spanish Steps area of Rome and expanded beyond their traditional leather products, into ready-to-wear clothing, perfumes, shoes and children’s clothes. Carla’s focus at the time, and since, was in communications, encompassing the press office, advertising, promotional events and brand image.

A further boost to Fendi’s business came in the form of Karl Lagerfeld, who was appointed as creative director the following year, devising the double “F” logo that he claimed denoted the firm’s origins. “You know, when I invented the double ‘F,’ it stood for ‘fun fur’”, he said.

The Seventies and Eighties saw considerable growth in the business, at home and globally. In 1996 Fendi introduced a new range of handbags, including the Baguette, which gained a cult status for its petite dimensions and quirky design. Soon adorning the arms of stars, including Julia Roberts and Madonna, the demand for the Baguette was such that customers were joining waiting lists to be seen with the first so-called “It Bag”.

But the late Nineties were also a time of tension within the family. “Five sisters was too much”, noted Lagerfeld, “And they were not speaking. The husbands were all happy when they sold”. In 2001 Fendi became part of the LVMH group, which took a majority 51 per cent share in the company, with the remaining shares held by the Fendi family and Carla remaining as president.

She established her Fondazione Carla Fendi to carry out charitable activities, which have included a €2m (£1.7m) donation for conservation works on Rome’s Trevi Fountain, completed in November 2015. Last year the company celebrated its 90th anniversary with a show including models floating on a perspex walkway over the fountain.

Her niece, Silva Fendi, who is still involved with the business, said: “Aunt Carla was one of the most visionary people I have ever met. She was very ambitious and driven, totally determined to make her small family company an international one in a way that was very rare for women in the Sixties.”

Carla Fendi, fashion designer, born 12 July 1937, died 19 June 2017