The Fendi Sisters: Five Women Who Turned a Roman Fur Shop Into a Fashion Empire
Five sisters, one Roman atelier, and the extraordinary 54-year partnership that transformed Fendi into a global fashion house.
The Fendi Sisters: Five Women Who Turned a Roman Fur Shop Into a Fashion Empire
There are family fashion houses, and then there is Fendi, a story built around five sisters who divided an inherited business between them and transformed it into something much larger than their parents could have imagined. Paola, Anna, Franca, Carla and Alda Fendi did not simply preserve their mother's Roman fur and leather business. They modernized it, professionalized it and, in 1965, made one of the most consequential decisions in modern fashion: they brought a young German designer named Karl Lagerfeld into the house. What followed was a 54-year creative partnership, the reinvention of fur, the birth of the double-F logo and eventually a global luxury empire.
The most interesting part, however, is that Fendi's transformation did not begin with Lagerfeld. It began with five women learning how to run a business in postwar Rome.
The Early Years: Adele Fendi and a Roman Workshop
The official Fendi story begins in Rome in 1925, when Adele Casagrande and Edoardo Fendi established their fur and leather business on Via del Plebiscito. The boutique combined a retail shop with an atelier, putting craftsmanship directly behind the products customers saw in the window.
There is an important detail here that often gets compressed in retellings. Adele's story had already begun before the Fendi name existed. According to Italy's National Archives, she was born in Rome in 1897 and opened a leather and fur shop while still young. After marrying Edoardo in 1925, the couple ran the business together under his surname.
That distinction matters because the Fendi story was never simply a story of a husband founding a company and his daughters inheriting it. There was a woman at its foundation from the beginning.
The business became known for leather goods, handbags and fur, and its reputation grew beyond Rome. By the 1930s, Fendi craftsmanship was attracting international visitors to the city.
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