When Conie Vallese picked up the phone in Athens back in April, she had no idea the call would mark a turning point. Dan Thawley, Design Miami’s 2024 curator, had news, and not the kind one forgets. Fendi had selected her for its annual Design Miami commission, a collaboration the house has developed each December with some of the most compelling creatives in contemporary design. For Vallese, whose practice spans painting, sculpture, and material exploration, it was an invitation to translate her language into an entirely new scale.
Every year, Fendi presents a special collaboration for Design Miami, a tradition that has become one of the fair’s most defining moments. This edition also carries an added layer of significance: it is likely the last conceived under the eye of Silvia Venturini Fendi, as Maria Grazia Chiuri steps in as the maison’s new Global Creative Director. Chiuri, renowned for revolutionizing Dior as its first female designer, now inherits Fendi’s future. What she will do with this platform is anyone’s guess, but anticipation is already shaping the conversation.
Vallese’s first emotion was not excitement, but scale: “I had never been to Miami. I knew about Design Miami and Basel, but I couldn’t picture the magnitude of it,” she says. “I’ve never done a fair this size, so I felt overwhelmed and very responsible.”
That changed in Rome. Vallese spent time with Silvia, walked through FENDI’s ateliers, and held the materials that would become foundational: bronze, glass, leather, and more. “After that meeting with Silvia, I felt confident. I was welcomed, encouraged. They trusted me, and that put me in a very good place to start imagining what I wanted to do.”
The installation unfolds around a simple but resonant structure: five. Five ateliers, echoing the five Fendi sisters; five materials; five interpretations; five forms of exchange. “It was important for me to acknowledge the ateliers, not pretend I did this by myself,” she says. “There is support, togetherness, and learning. Collaboration is something I’m embracing more and more.”
Leather became a revelation. Vallese, known for bronze works that feel both ancient and contemporary, had never used leather before. “It was about putting the language of FENDI heritage into my bronze,” she explains. She focused on an iconic detail: the stitching used in the maison’s leather goods, especially interpretations of the Peekaboo bag. On her pieces, the stitches become intentional exaggerations, architectural rather than decorative.
Color brought immediacy. “The first thing I thought about Miami was sunshine, optimism, joy,” Vallese says. The yellow of the collection is bright but not naïve, cheerful without losing sophistication. It also nods to FENDI’s iconic yellow — not the exact shade of its packaging, but close enough to signal lineage. “We need happiness right now,” she says. “I wanted joy.”
Her recurring motif, flowers, appear throughout, not as ornament but as a symbol of time. “I keep bringing flowers into my work, not because they’re pretty (although I think they’re very chic), but because of their cycle,” she says. “I feel like as a woman I’m always blooming, going through stages of life.”
Born in Buenos Aires, Vallese studied film before committing to design. “I thought I wanted to make movies,” she says, “but I realized I’m solitary. I need to feel grounded through making.” She spent childhood afternoons creating cakes out of flowers and petals. Today, she splits her time between New York and Milan, working in bronze and developing projects with artists and ateliers across Europe. But she doesn’t accumulate objects, including her own. “I don’t even have much of my work with me. I have one chair,” she admits. “If I have a room full of things, I feel trapped. I like to feel light enough to get up and leave.”
What she treasured most about the collaboration was not visibility but gathering. “It was the first time I saw my world together in one space,” she says. “Usually my shows are one piece mixed with others. Here, seeing everything together felt… nice.” Balancing gratitude with pragmatism, she doesn’t romanticize big moments: “I don’t get my head in the clouds. Appreciation and pride, yes. But my concern is to feel connected to my desire and continue exploring.”
Her takeaway is simple and quietly powerful: trust fuels creation. “FENDI gave me an opportunity to bring together a lot of myself,” Vallese says. “That made me want to make more work, keep going, keep exploring.”