IT’S THE DAY before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Italy’s unofficial kickoff to the Christmas season. Tomorrow, the streets of Rome will explode with fireworks, public displays of supplication, singing, soccer matches among young priests and an appearance by Pope Francis near the foot of the Spanish Steps.

But on this quiet early December afternoon, the 62-year-old designer Silvia Venturini Fendi — the third-generation matriarch of the Fendi dynasty, and one of the few women at the creative helm of a luxury fashion house, inherited or otherwise — is mostly preoccupied with how to fix a sweater. There are five weeks until Fendi’s fall 2023 men’s wear show in Milan and, at a meeting to go over the new collection at the brand’s headquarters, she’s demanding some changes.