Fashion house BOTTEGA VENETA presented its Spring Summer 2023 Collection, that finds balance between the archetypal and the individual, on Saturday, September 24th, during the ongoing Milan Fashion Week. The collection brings a sense of motion and emotion, and the quiet power of a more private pleasure, with stories of clothing and character that are explored by maker and wearer. For the season, designer Matthieu Blazy fuses elegance with utility, and everyday elements with meaningful materials and techniques.
SPRING SUMMER 2023 COLLECTION
The world in a small room: the premise is simple – the collection is about a contrast of characters on the go, invited to travel through Gaetano Pesce;s landscape. Here, two distinct worlds are juxtaposed, while our journey of craft in motion and quiet power continues.
Moving between the archetypal and the individual, through clothing and character, I wanted to design not just for one woman or one man, but for women and men. From the perverse banality of the everyday nubuck looks, to the eroticism of ultra-sophistication through tailoring, via the look of the bourgeois left of the past, to the souvenirs worn by a high-brow traveller… The whole world in a small room. – Matthieu Blazy
“From the Italian bombshell in her everyday, photo-real plaid and chinos (archetypal garments are all printed, supple nubuck, startlingly realised) with her Allez Hop! bag slung over her shoulder, (a purposely traditional interpretation of the Intreccio is a motif of the sense of subversion and discreet perversion that runs throughout with contexts subtly changed); to the girl in her fur (again, it’s a print, this time mock fox printed on goat); then on to men and women in supposedly stripped down suiting, revealing in profile a more radical, recurring silhouette (here, the Boccioni inspiration is made sleeker and more sinuous, with a nod to the aerodynamic, also found in sculptural footwear); to women and men in another take on traditional tailoring subverted (a neo-noir idea almost of the past from the future, finds form in the Volcano silhouette, with its gentle funnel neck and thorough waist). Rigorous fabrications, all freshly and exclusively formulated for ultra-lightness, fullness, movement and texture, are found throughout for both men and women; from bold, full, knotted wool silk tailoring fabrics that are a new take on boucle, and the tension of twisted mouliné in contrasting colours, through to the ‘high sewing’ of mid-century flowers on ‘Chandelier’ dresses, their delicate embroideries layered on cotton crepe gauze over nylon sheer jersey – the tension of the past and future in one. A stratification of history also appears in knitted jacquards that appear like elaborate Futurist patterns. Layered with embroidery and beading, all placed by hand, each is idiosyncratic and unique, a conflation of past, present and future through craft.” – From Bottega Veneta
This space is a tribute to diversity. It is about the human being; we are all different. People who say we are all the same – fuck them! We are all different and this is our defining quality – otherwise, we are just a copy. We are all originals and this is one of the themes of my design. – Gaetano Pesce, set designer