Rome pays tribute to Carla Fendi

Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi and former mayor, Francesco Rutelli, were among those who showed up to say a last goodbye to the honorary president of the famous fashion house, who died Monday at the age of 80, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Always perfectly turned out with a tan and a signature short crop of curly hair, she was a force of nature," Vogue magazine wrote in its obituary.

"With her drive, her passion, her exacting eye, and her great skills as an ambassador, she played a pivotal role in establishing the foundations of Fendi's success," the leading fashion monthly wrote.

In 1925, Carla Fendi's parents, Adele and Edoardo, founded a small family firm dedicated to fur and leather goods. Carla was one of five sisters, who their mother nicknamed "the five fingers of the hand".

She joined the firm in the 1950s, and along with her sisters, in 1965 she hired young German designer Karl Lagerfeld, who launched the House's first ready-to-wear collection in 1977 and who marked his 50th anniversary with the brand last year.

Over time the label's logo made up of two Fs, one of them upside-down and backwards, became an internationally recognized symbol for luxury.

"Fendi put on a fashion show atop the Great Wall of China on October 19, 2007, making this breathtaking event the first show visible from the Moon," according to the brand's website.

Carla served as the company's president until the fashion house was sold to French luxury group LVMH in 1999, after which she served as honorary president.

In 2007, she set up the Carla Fendi Foundation, which funded the restoration of Rome's Trevi Fountain in 2016 and has been a patron of Italy's National Academy of St Cecilia classical music institution since 2010.

Carla Fendi was also honorary president of the Festival dei Due Mondi (Italian for Festival of the Two Worlds) -- a music, opera, dance and visual arts festival held in the ancient hilltop city of Spoleto every summer since 1958.

In a note on its website, the Festival honoured Carla Fendi as "a generous patron, a friend to the city of Spoleto and to its festival, whose successes she has shared for many decades with her extraordinary participation".