EXCLUSIVE: Fendi's Basketball Season Is Just Beginning
The NBA playoffs may be winding down but Fendi's basketball season is only just beginning. The nearly 100-year-old luxury label, founded in 1925, is stepping onto the hardwood with Fendi Active Basketball, a seasonal collection of sportswear launching for as part of Fendi Summer 2023.
Fendi's dabbled in sportswear here and there over the years, not surprising given Fendi's lengthy legacy. It's issued Fendi-branded gear, for instance (including a nearly $2k skateboard), and initiated a partnership with football club AS Roma in 2022 that included player outfits designed by Silvia Venturini Fendi, Fendi’s Artistic Director of Accessories and Menswear.
Fendi Active Basketball, available in Fendi's site, stores and stockists like Saks from June 1, is the house's deepest dive into roundball. Ball is life, you see, so Fendi created a capsule that lives both on and off the court, a similar approach other LVMH labels have taken when exploring basketball.
The game-ready stuff, should you see fit to rock Fendi the next time you play a quick pickup game, will have you dudded-up in opulent athleisure.
There are two different matching jersey and short styles, affecting the appearance of Fendi Roma team uniforms for both home and away games.
Cut from technical, sweat-wicking cloth, the sportswear is still plenty indulgent and, if the fancy textiles aren't enough, Fendi branding leaves no doubt that these players are fully kitted-out but good.
Now, Fendi ballers need suitable sneakers to hoop in, so Fendi has remixed its signature Match sneaker in mid-top form, offering the shoe with either neutral-tinged uppers or lavish crystals. That latter pair, especially, is better suited to after-game flexing, to say the least.
More fun stuff includes a $10k Fendi basketball hoop (!), Fendi sweatbands, and other off-court bits, like a tracksuit and lightweight bomber. If you look closely, you'll notice Fendi's tonal FF monogram and black piped detailing that, when taken abstractly, affect the appearance of a basketball's seams.
You get the picture. Really, you can sum up Fendi Active Basketball in a single word borrowed from Jim Jones — not to be confused with Fendi's artistic director of womenswear, Kim Jones — "Ballin."
