In the autumn of 1985, fashion crossed a boundary in Italy. For the first time, a major Italian fashion house entered the museum with an exhibition devoted to its own creative practice. At Rome’s Galleria Nazionale di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Steps Through Work. Fendi / Karl Lagerfeld 1985 offered an unprecedented view into the relationship between Fendi and Karl Lagerfeld, marking two decades of collaboration while positioning fashion as a subject worthy of serious cultural and artistic examination.
Four decades later, Fendi returns to the same galleries with After Steps Through Work. Fendi / Karl Lagerfeld 1985, an exhibition that looks backward without becoming nostalgic. On view from July 10 through October 25, 2026, the presentation revisits the spirit of the original while examining it through the lens of four additional decades of fashion, design, technology, and cultural change.
Conceived by Fendi Chief Creative Officer Maria Grazia Chiuri, the project deliberately avoids the conventions of a traditional retrospective. “After” is the essential word. Rather than reproduce the 1985 exhibition, the new presentation asks what happens when a landmark moment is brought back into the present and viewed with fresh eyes. The result is part archive, part reinterpretation, and part dialogue between generations of creative thinking.
The original exhibition, curated by Ida Panicelli, was conceived as a journey through Fendi’s creative process. Lagerfeld developed the exhibition’s visual and spatial concept, with the installation realized by Claudio Lazzarini and Carmela Vigliotti. Visitors were taken from initial ideas and drawings through experimentation, development, and production, revealing how the creative team transformed fur into a medium for extraordinary innovation. Rather than presenting finished fashion simply as objects of desire, the exhibition exposed the thinking, craftsmanship, and experimentation behind them.
That approach remains central to the 2026 edition. Curated by Maria Luisa Frisa, with exhibition design by Lazzarini Pickering Architetti and graphic design by Irene Bacchi and Leonardo Sonnoli, the exhibition draws together material from both the Fendi archive and the historical holdings of the Galleria Nazionale. The result is an extensive portrait of a partnership that fundamentally reshaped the language of Fendi.
Across the exhibition are 22 paper models, seven preparatory canvases, 50 sample boards, 180 sketches, and 25 furs, alongside the 1977 film Histoire D’Eau, directed by Jacques de Bascher. Interviews with Paola Fendi, Ida Panicelli, and Arturo Carlo Quintavalle add personal and historical perspectives, while contemporary documentation and press coverage from the original 1985 exhibition reveal how radically fashion’s relationship with the museum was being reconsidered at the time.
Not every object from the original presentation has survived. Where archival pieces could not be located, heritage reproductions have been introduced. Rather than disguising the gaps in the historical record, the exhibition acknowledges them, recognizing that revisiting the past is never an act of simple recovery. It is an exercise in interpretation.
The exhibition unfolds through eight thematic environments: Sample Boards, Kaleidoscope, Design Frameworks, Theater, Comb, Video, Sketches, and Computer. Together, they create a layered portrait of the design process, moving between physical craftsmanship and conceptual experimentation. The journey concludes with a selection of press responses from 1985, bringing visitors back to the debate that surrounded the original exhibition: could fashion occupy the same cultural space as art, design, and other established museum disciplines?
Four decades later, that question still resonates.
The significance of the exhibition extends beyond its historical setting. Lagerfeld’s relationship with Fendi continued until his death in 2019, spanning 54 years and becoming one of the longest and most influential creative partnerships in modern fashion. Together, Fendi and Lagerfeld developed a visual vocabulary that transformed the perception of fur, challenged conventional ideas of luxury, and demonstrated how experimentation could become the foundation of enduring identity.
After Steps Through Work is therefore more than an archival celebration. It is an opportunity to reconsider the mechanics of creativity itself the sketches before the collection, the experiments before the finished object, and the conversations that shape a house over generations. In bringing the story back to the museum where it first made history, Fendi offers a compelling reminder that truly consequential creative work does not belong exclusively to its era. It continues to evolve each time it is seen again.
After Steps Through Work. Fendi / Karl Lagerfeld 1985 is on view at the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Viale delle Belle Arti 131, Rome, from July 10 through October 25, 2026. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.