FENDI’s Croissant Bag: A Century of Italian Craftsmanship, Reimagined for the Woman Who Earns Her Own Luxury

The first thing Anita remembers is the butter.

On a quiet morning in her family home in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, a freshly baked croissant rests on a delicate Ginori 1735 porcelain platter atop a Baccarat dining table. Still warm from the oven, its golden, intricately layered crust releases the intoxicating fragrance of French butter, filling the room with the sort of quiet indulgence that makes the world outside momentarily irrelevant. 

Thirty-two-year-old Anita, a Malaysian interior designer with an instinct for beautiful objects and the stories they tell, draws closer. She cannot remember when she first tasted this exquisite pastry. In her family, croissants have been a breakfast ritual for decades, a tradition inherited from her French grandmother, who understood that the smallest pleasures often become life’s most enduring luxuries.

She watches the steam curl upwards before breaking the crescent-shaped pastry in two, spreading each half with her favourite St Dalfour blueberry jam. The first bite is buttery, delicate and gloriously flaky. For a moment, she closes her eyes. Heaven, she thinks, should taste precisely like this.

Lately, however, another croissant has occupied her imagination.

Not one destined for her breakfast table, but one designed to rest beneath her arm: the iconic Croissant bag by FENDI, the Roman maison whose century-long romance with leather, exquisite materials and Italian craftsmanship has made its creations objects of enduring desire.

Anita’s original Croissant belongs to her mother, who purchased it spontaneously during an autumn sojourn in Europe. For years, Anita admired the bag from a distance, quietly hoping it might one day become hers. 

Eventually, after two decades of accompanying her mother across continents and into boardroom meetings, it did. At the beginning of her career as a junior designer at a distinguished architecture firm, this treasured hand-me-down represented considerably more than a luxury accessory. 

It was a connection to her mother, a lesson in the longevity of exceptional design, and a small, tangible reminder of the professional woman she aspired to become.

Today, promoted to head of her department and increasingly confident in her own achievements, Anita is ready for another chapter. And for Cruise 2027, FENDI has given her precisely the reason she needs.

Reimagined by Maria Grazia Chiuri, the Croissant returns with a renewed sense of personality, its familiar silhouette opening itself to a wonderfully expressive wardrobe of materials, textures and finishes. When Anita discovers the new collection on FENDI’s website, she recognises something immediately: this is not a replacement for the bag she inherited, but an entirely personal interpretation of a design she has loved for years.

She pre-orders it without hesitation. Some decisions, after all, require very little deliberation when the heart has already made up its mind.

First unveiled on FENDI’s Fall/Winter 1999–2000 catwalk, the Croissant emerged from the same inventive spirit that made the house’s Baguette® 26424 an enduring fashion phenomenon. Conceived as an extension of its celebrated predecessor, it introduced a different proposition: a crescent-shaped companion whose relaxed, under-the-arm attitude felt less like a formal declaration of status and more like an expression of instinctive, individual style.

Its half-moon silhouette is deceptively simple. There is an appealing softness to its curved profile, a fluidity that follows the natural movement of the body rather than imposing itself upon it. The distinctive FF flap closure establishes its FENDI identity, while side buckles and an adjustable strap introduce practical versatility.

It is a bag designed to move with its owner, from a morning meeting to an impromptu lunch, from an afternoon spent exploring the city to an evening when a change of shoes and lipstick is all that separates professional composure from after-dark glamour.

For Cruise 2027, Chiuri reconsiders this familiar icon through a more expansive, adventurous vocabulary. The new interpretations span paillette embroidery, bold animalier patterns animated by fringes, glistening crackled leather and the unmistakable FF Zucca jacquard. 

Each treatment gives the same recognisable silhouette a different temperament.

Paillettes bring a celebratory shimmer, catching the light with every movement; animalier prints and swinging fringes introduce a wilder, more instinctive femininity. Crackled leather offers a beautifully imperfect luminosity, while the FF Zucca jacquard reconnects the collection with the house’s graphic heritage. 

Rather than confining the Croissant to a single colour story, these variations make texture the principal language of self-expression.

The result is a bag with an unusually persuasive proposition: one shape, multiple personalities. For the woman who dresses according to her mood rather than an algorithm’s prescription, such versatility is not a frivolous extra. It is the very point.

To understand why the Croissant resonates beyond its immediate desirability, one must return to Rome in 1925, when Adele and Edoardo Fendi established their leather goods and fur business. What began as a family enterprise grew under the stewardship of their five daughters—Paola, Anna, Franca, Carla and Alda—who helped transform the maison into an internationally respected luxury house.

Their defining decision came in 1965, when they engaged a then young German designer, Karl Lagerfeld. His subsequent collaboration with the family would last 54 years, one of fashion’s most remarkable creative partnerships. 

Lagerfeld introduced the double-F emblem and its playful Fun Fur philosophy, challenging the conventional treatment of fur through lighter constructions, unexpected colours, graphic patterns and innovative finishing. Fur was no longer merely a symbol of inherited wealth; in his hands, it became a medium for experimentation, modernity and artistic expression. 

FENDI subsequently introduced ready-to-wear in 1977, extending this inventive outlook beyond the fur atelier.

Then came the handbags that entered the cultural imagination. Silvia Venturini Fendi’s Baguette, introduced in 1997, became a defining accessory of its era, while the Croissant developed its own identity within the house’s evolving handbag vocabulary. These were not simply receptacles for a woman’s daily necessities. 

They were objects with personality, capable of communicating taste, humour and cultural awareness without requiring an accompanying monologue.

Chiuri’s appointment as FENDI’s Chief Creative Officer in 2025 brought another significant chapter to this Roman story. Having begun her career at the maison, she returned with a particular understanding of its heritage and the women whose vision shaped it. 

Her first collection, Fall/Winter 2026–2027, explored collective creativity under the motto Meno io, più noi—“Less I, More Us”—placing sensuality, movement and the legacy of the five sisters at the heart of her vision.

Her reimagining of the Croissant feels especially meaningful within this context. It honours the past without asking contemporary women to live in it. There is softness, certainly, but never fragility; sensuality, but no surrender of independence. Above all, there is the freedom to decide which version of oneself the day requires.

For discerning clients, the argument for the Cruise 2027 Croissant extends beyond its striking appearance. Luxury is most compelling when beauty is supported by substance: a recognisable design language, considered construction, material expertise and a house capable of evolving without abandoning its identity.

FENDI’s history in leatherworking and fur craftsmanship provides the foundation for this proposition. Its Selleria tradition, rooted in Roman saddlery, continues to demonstrate the maison’s commitment to specialist handwork and the disciplined pursuit of quality.

Of course, heritage alone does not make every luxury purchase worthwhile, and a celebrated name is no guarantee of a particular bag’s longevity. Materials require care, finishes will age differently, and individual tastes inevitably change. 

Yet a design with an established identity and multiple styling possibilities has a stronger claim to a lasting place in one’s wardrobe than an accessory purchased solely because social media has declared it indispensable.

This is precisely why the Croissant deserves consideration as the festive season approaches. Its embroidered, animalier, metallic-looking and jacquard interpretations offer different routes into FENDI’s world, whether one’s wardrobe favours understated tailoring or exuberant evening dressing. 

The silhouette is sufficiently distinctive to make an entrance, yet sufficiently versatile to accompany more than one carefully orchestrated occasion.

For Anita, the distinction is personal. She is not purchasing a symbol of a life she hopes somebody else will grant her. She is choosing an object that reflects a life she has worked to build.

When the parcel finally arrives, Anita takes her time opening it. The familiar yellow packaging, the immaculate presentation and, finally, the Croissant itself make the experience feel almost ceremonial. 

She runs her fingers over its surface, admiring the play of texture and the precision of its details. It is every bit as beautiful as she had imagined.

She slips the strap over her shoulder, then adjusts it, watching her reflection in the mirror. For a fleeting moment, she sees the younger woman who once admired her mother’s bag, uncertain whether she would ever own one of her own. 

Then she sees the woman she has become: accomplished, self-assured and ready to enjoy the rewards of her own determination.

The Croissant is not a promotion, a salary increase or a measure of her worth. Those achievements already belong to her. But it is a tangible celebration of them, an indulgence chosen freely and paid for through her own labour.

And suddenly, she remembers Carrie Bradshaw’s immortal declaration to her friends Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte in Sex and the City: “I like my money right where I can see it: hanging in my closet.”

Anita laughs. Precisely.

Outside, Kuala Lumpur continues at its familiar, exhilarating pace. Inside, she places her new Croissant beside the original she inherited from her mother. One carries the memories of another woman’s journey; the other marks the beginning of her own collection of milestones.

Perhaps that is the real allure of FENDI. Beyond the FF insignia, the exquisite finishes and the unmistakable Roman provenance lies a more intimate promise: that an object can hold memories, express identity and celebrate the person we have fought to become.

And this Christmas, for the woman who has spent the year giving her very best to everyone else, the most meaningful gift may simply be the one she chooses for herself.

The new Croissant is available for pre-order at fendi.com, and in FENDI boutiques worldwide from October 22nd, 2026.

*Photos courtesy of FENDI.