There’s nothing religious about FENDI. But one takes a pilgrimage of sort to its star shop when there is an opportunity in Rome. It popped up in my pilgrimage like a splat in the face. If it was temptation dancing in Karl Largerfield’s mink image, or trying on a pair of shoes with monsters on them, I may have done a prodigal quick step, but it didn’t disrupt my focus. Yet, it was an opportunity to see behind the scenes, the experts who put the prestigious fashion house on the map of women’s gift list. I had done these kinds of things before as fashion editor of the old, long gone, Memphis Press Scimitar.

Last time I was in Miami with my fashionable, fun, yoga star granddaughter Sloan – in fact every time I’m in Miami with Sloan – we head for Fendi, walking through those electronic orange columns as if they were the orange Shintu gates in Japan. Sloan is charmed by Fendi sun glasses and shoes. I’m charmed by the funky fur monsters that one hooks onto one’s purse. Since I only carry one purse, and I only wear black, I’m drawn to the colorful mink monsters who can change a purse from modest to way out there. A monster can also be a pal when traveling alone, a handful of mink glaring at you with some funny look.

In correspondent with Carolyn, the young manager who assists us each time, she heard I was going to Roma, Italy, and suggested I might love a Fendi treatment – since its newly updated principle store is at the bottom of Spanish steps, and I’m staying at the top of those steps. I would be their guest to tour the store, see the latest fashions, play with the newest monsters, and visit the special room where furriers cut and create the next models for high fashion. And with all the security inside and outside the shop, the only worry I had was my temptation resist level.

First, there is the building itself, the flagship for this store which has turned, in recent years, from a rather stiff fine upper class enterprise to a funky young, colorful, fur-filled line easier to indulge in with glee. Of course, it is all expensive and so you have to watch that gusto when you like everything in the store. At noon, the day I arrived in Roma, I was to appear at the store for the tour and lunch at Zuma, the sushi restaurant on the top floor. I guess I would indulge in my two favorite non-religious things. Fendi and Sushi. It was a palace to dream about only, with the finest of artisan work in its furniture, walls, design and interior decor. I was greeted by a lovely lady, who started my education at a mirror ball that reminds me of the huge bean in Chicago, reflecting oneself back and forth as one moves around it.

On the first two floors, there were seductive shoes, jackets, and more and more monsters and a chance to sit in the monster chair, sort of a contemporary seat covered in the furry things, and to climb the marbled steps up to a second floor where I was allowed to try on jackets. An educational moment was in the fur room where purple pelts were laid out, fur down, in preparation for the next fabulous design. There were three experts in fur who had been with the Fendi family for many decades, and I was awed by their skills to create paper model dresses and coats that looked like works of art by themselves. I was even allowed to try on one of the lovely fur coats meticulously put together with interesting patterns of sewing, and also feel the expensive silver sable which has certainly grown giddy and good since the old days of the heavy long mink my mother had, and those Russian sable no-style capes. There is more skill behind a pelt than the visible part. And these artist craftsman know how to blend, cut, trim, press, so that a masterpiece unlike any other – and at that kind of price – is the norm.

Then it was up the elevator to see the apartment/ rooms which look out over the city, and then to the “man” reception area where some of the wealthiest people in the world come and sit and watch Fendi present their best, so gentlemen can invest in the six and seven digit creations for their wives, girlfriends, mothers? The furniture is from the modern world’s finest and there are rooms hidden a way so no one knows when married men are purchasing for girlfriends. I never had one of those. It was the reverse, I fear. I learned the history of the building, the Fendi family, and the prospects for the future. Taking the younger, fun and frolicking approach has turned their atelier into an adventure, even for a pilgrim like me.