Bless interpret Fendi’s world at Design Miami 2023

Designers Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag pose lively provocations to a host of status quos. Working as Bless, which they founded in 1995, they unite all the creative disciplines into living sculptures, hybrid garments and large-scale installations. They release fashion products seasonally but offer them in perpetuity. They embellish the shock of early surrealist art, forcing us to relook at the world with a freshly pressed awe. In the pair’s principled eccentricity, Bless presents an ode to the bumpy, curious rhythm of creative practice. 

In April 2022, the duo received an invitation to collaborate with Fendi on a project for Design Miami 2023. The email – from Simon Parris, who is part of Kim Jones Studio – was met with scepticism. ‘I immediately said “why us?”’ Kaag recalls. ‘But maybe because it was so abstract, and so not what we would have expected, we became hooked on finding out more.’ Parris had been intrigued by Bless since seeing its recycled fur wigs for Margiela in i-D magazine in the late 1990s. ‘My visibility of what Bless have been doing has always ebbed and flowed,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t sure what kind of response I would get, but I was excited by the fact that I wasn’t sure. That it wasn’t a done deal.’ 

(Image credit: Alecio Ferrari)

This spotlight-dodging is the exact kind of operating mode that Bless has skilfully orchestrated for itself. Both Heiss, who lives in Paris, and Kaag who is in Berlin, are unique in that they work on their own terms, with an intense commitment to the process. All their output is the final expression of many conversations, many questions, many debates. Parris was excited that his invitation was provocative for both parties. ‘We were not familiar with Fendi, apart from our on-the-surface understanding of a post-Karl Lagerfeld era,’ says Heiss. ‘We were totally disconnected. The fact that the brief was for Design Miami, which is another institution we’re not interested in necessarily, was also a challenge for us. We couldn’t see why we were being approached, but then we didn’t expect to feel the connections we did upon entering the Fendi world.’

(Image credit: Alecio Ferrari)

Blown away by the level of craftsmanship, care and community they encountered, Heiss and Kaag designed a process that would help them to gain insight into the more private aspects of the brand. They requested time with employees across the whole company, from the administration departments all the way to the atelier. ‘We fell in love with this structure, with all the women we met and this female, family power we could feel,’ Kaag says. ‘We felt that there was something in this strength that we would wish for Bless.’ From that moment, they started to develop a language together.

(Image credit: Alecio Ferrari)

The outcome is ‘Backfrontal’, which consists of four double-sided screens, fabricated by Fendi Casa, and features scenery at the front and alcoves at the back. ‘We wanted to create this back-side corridor, lined with very elaborate, practical things like furniture by Fendi Casa and other storage elements. This is actually the side full of richness,’ says Kaag. The space features a 1.4m intarsia blanket made of shearling, printed calf and lamb leather, and Merino wool, artfully combined to replicate an image of the unglamorous, functional basement of Fendi’s headquarters in Rome. 

Elsewhere, recycled pieces of fur appear on broom handles and bottles of detergent. The front sides show lifesized wallscapes of Fendi environments that Heiss and Kaag navigated when they visited the brand in Rome, including the handsome marble entrance of its Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana HQ, the kitchen in the home of a Fendi family member, and the private showroom atop the label’s flagship boutique.

(Image credit: Alecio Ferrari)

Throughout their research, Heiss and Kaag were energised by the atmosphere of possibility. ‘Each and every encounter, no matter if it was a young person, or someone who had worked for Fendi for many, many years, was pure pleasure,’ says Heiss. ‘It was not just a stupid 15-minute chat, we came out of these encounters totally mesmerised. What fascinated us most about Fendi is the complexity of a former family company that has kept its spirit and magic after having joined a big group. All of its operations are anchored in an Italian way of being.’