Italian fashion designer Carla Fendi dead

Rome June 20 (IANS/AKI) Italian luxury fashion designer Carla Fendi has died at the age of 79 after a long illness her family announced on Tuesday.

Fendi who died on Monday played a key role along with her four sisters in developing and expanding her parents small leather workshop transforming the business into a global luxury fashion brand.

The fashion legend had a strong bond with long-standing creative director Karl Lagerfeld who helped design clothes furs and accessories.

The company later expanded into ready-to-wear shoes perfume household goods and children s wear. In her later years Fendi became a well-known patron of the arts and Italian craftsmanship.

Fendi had a lifelong commitment to her native city s culture and heritage and the foundation she set up with her husband Candido funded the restoration of Rome s famous Trevi Fountain.

A lover of art and music Fendi was chief patron of the Two Worlds arts festival in the Umbrian city of Spoleto.

This is a sad day for Italian culture. We will feel the loss of a cultured an sensitive woman said Italy s Culture Minister Dario Francheschini.

Farewell Carla Fendi great Roman citizen who with her creativity and business talent brought Italian fashion to the whole world tweeted Rome s grassroots Mayor Virginia Raggi.

Fendi s funeral will be held Thursday in the capital at the Basilica di Santa Maria in Montesanto known as The Church of the Artists .

--IANS/AKI
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