Back in late February, during the AW22 show season, one of the most hotly anticipated fashion debuts of the year took place: yes, Matthieu Blazy’s very first collection at the helm of Bottega Veneta. A celebration of the Italian house’s proud heritage of exacting craftsmanship and eyewatering luxury, the close-to-70 look collection he presented at San Fedele in Milan – styled by i-D’s very own EIC Alastair McKimm – was an instant triumph.
Louche white ‘vests’ and blue ‘jeans’ were in fact cut from expertly dyed, butter-soft nappa, and glossy leather thigh-high boots and boxy bags were created using in the house’s emblematic intrecciato weave. Fronds of fringe bounced from beneath conical leather skirts in lemon and mauve, spaghetti-strapped slip dresses were covered in translucent paillettes, gleaming like mermaid’s scales, and generously tailored three-piece suits and overcoats came in mottled knits. The clothes we saw then were, put plainly, the clothes of dreams – the sort of clothes that inspire the mind to travel at first glance. Seeing them again today in Bottega Veneta’s new campaign, they’ll do just the same again.
Shot by a group of five young photographers – Malick Bodian, Solène Şahmaran Gün, Francois Halard, Sander Muylaert, and Louise and Maria Thornfeldt – Matthieu’s aim was to create a visual epic that paid tribute to the house’s roots. “Bottega Veneta was created by a collective of artisans,” he says via a release. “This is the history, and this is how we approached the campaign: together, with many different ways of seeing.”
An equally crucial aspect of the house’s history is, of course, its core practicality. “Bottega Veneta is in essence pragmatic because it is a leather goods company,” Matthieu continues. “Because it specialises in bags it is about movement, of going somewhere; there is fundamentally an idea of craft in motion. It is style over fashion in its timelessness. That is part of its quiet power.”
These values distil into a series of images that see the collection – worn by an intergenerational cast of models who walked the show, including Mariacarla Boscono, Anok Yai and Dara Gueye – travel from the concrete bowels of the show’s Milanese setting to the neon haze and pocked canopies of Horst, a techno-soundtracked cultural festival in Belgium, to the balmy climes of southern Italy.
A testament to the variety of perspectives that culminate in the final campaign, we flit between scenes of full looks caught in situ in real-world contexts, candid portraits, and still-life vignettes that bring the inimitable craft capabilities of Bottega Veneta’s ateliers to the fore with unscripted ease. The instantly emblematic, curved silhouette of a denim jacket is captured with the same attention-to-detail as the knotted leather netting covering a pair of clodhopper boots. The glisten of a comma-heeled patent stiletto is echoed in the gleam of sequins caught in a spotlight. It all sounds pretty magical, right? Well, scroll on for a look at one of the season’s stand-out campaigns – oh, and download the Bottega Veneta app for an interactive look at the whole thing!
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