Fendi to show on China's Great Wall

Italian luxury house Fendi seems to be putting its troubled past behind and is to be the first luxury house to stage a fashion show on the Great Wall of China in autumn of this year. The Italian fashion giant, best-known for its Fendi Baguette bag, is owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, and counts Karl Lagerfeld as its creative director. Fendi is moving forward and is further gearing up to launch a new fragrance and open boutiques in markets from Turkey to Qatar. Fendi is also moving into fine jewellery and hotels and bolstering its website to provide better links to e-commerce partners such as Net-a-porter.

"It's a very positive moment. Whatever is happening is happening with a lot of passion," Fendi chief executive Michael Burke told WWD . " Burke stated sales last year came in at roughly 300 million euros and would grow at a "substantial double-digit" rate for the current year and were on track to meet LVMH's original goal of hitting 500 million euros by 2008. Burke said Fendi wanted to grow by an average of 20 percent to 25 percent each year for the next five years.