Luca Guadagnino

Photo: Courtesy of Fendi
In celebration of the new Peekaboo Petite and Micro handbags, Fendi has joined forces with Italian film director and friend of the house, Luca Guadagnino, to create a short film starring former Vogue Arabia cover star Adwoa Aboah. The campaign film created by the Call Me By Your Name director features the top model soaring through Rome over through its rooftops before eventually landing on Fendi’s Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana.
Photo: Courtesy of Fendi
“With the DNA of Fendi being Rome, we, of course, talked about Rome – but instead of being in Rome, being above Rome,” says Guadagnino of the film’s concept. “We had this idea of levity – of the Peekaboo bag, at the center of the movie, being the magical driver behind Adwoa flying over the ancient city.”
Photo: Courtesy of Fendi
Aboah was chosen by the Italian fashion house for their shared values around women empowerment and independence. The film sees her depicted as a “fashionable incarnation of superwoman” flying over Rome’s skies in a dreamlike fantasy before touching down on Earth to determine her fate, claiming her own autonomy. “I think that carrying a Peekaboo says something about a very strong, powerful, and empowered person who is not afraid to hide,” says Silvia Venturini Fendi, creative director of Fendi. “It has its two compartments — one you can keep close to you and closed, and the other where you can choose to reveal something of yourself to the world.”
Photo: Courtesy of Fendi
“I feel part of Fendi,” says Guadagnino of working with the fashion house. “I am very close friends with Fendi – as a brand for sure but, most importantly, as a friend of people who are pillars of the company. I feel a very deep connection with the brand – and my mother used to wear Fendi back in the 70s and 80s so the logo, the type of materials, the quality and the design of Fendi have always been part of my imagery.”
Photo: Courtesy of Fendi
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Audrey Hepburn. Photo: Getty
Algerian-Sicilian Luca Guadagnino has another movie in the works. The Oscar-nominated director, who made his mark with Call Me By Your Name, which saw Timothée Chalamet shoot to stardom, and later I am Love with Tilda Swinton, The Bigger Splash with Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, and Dakota Fanning; is set to next direct a biopic on Audrey Hepburn. The role of Hepburn will be played by Rooney Mara, who will also produce the film. The American actor, famed for her roles in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Carol, is already something of a doppelgänger for the ’50s actor who starred in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, My Fair Lady, and Roman Holiday, and won an Emmy, Oscar, Tony, and Grammy. Hepburn worked with UNICEF helping children in Africa, South America, and Asia, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992. She was a friend of couturier Hubert de Givenchy, once stating, “It was Hubert de Givenchy who gave me a look, a genre a silhouette. Dressed by him, I’m not afraid of anything.”
“To me, cinema is like having a comfortable blanket across your knees for warmth,” Guadagnino shared with Vogue Arabia. The director cites the work of directors Nagisa Oshima, Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz lang, Roberto Rossellini, and Jean-Luc Godard as formative. Born in Palermo to an Algerian mother and Sicilian father, Guadagnino eventually moved to Rome to study literature and film history. He critiqued movies for the newspaper Il Manifesto. While directing his colleagues, he boldly wrote Swinton with an offer to collaborate. His persistence manifested their relationship, with Guadagnino commenting, “The quest of my life has always been the pursuit of kindred spirits.” While there is no specific hook yet revealed for his biopic on Hepburn, it will be interesting to observe the chemistry between the director and his latest muse in the role of one of the world’s enduring love affairs with an actress of the silver screen.
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