Because the apex of trend week sweeps the town, it’s protected to say that Milan is a zoo in the meanwhile: Loro Piana, Prada, Bottega Veneta, oh my! AD has saved a detailed watch on the latter Italian home ever since artistic director Matthieu Blazy changed Daniel Lee in 2021. Below the French-Belgian designer’s path, the model has seeped into oeuvres exterior of ready-to-wear, increasing the Bottega Veneta universe into diverse visible mediums past the leather-based items they’re so famend for. Contemplate this season a whimsical departure, but additionally fully true to type: for its spring/summer time 2025 present, going down on September 21, Bottega Veneta proclaims The Ark, a limited-edition lounge chair assortment impressed by Zanotta’s Sacco seat.
The chairs are each true to type and an important element of “a joyful world with a way of marvel, populated by pleasant companions that make you smile and say ‘wow,’” Blazy explains. He commissioned the gathering after drawing parallels between the beanbag chair’s softness, anti-formalism, and plasticity—all of that are components attribute of Bottega Veneta’s signature luggage. The Sacco was designed in 1968 by Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini and Franco Teodoro—however Blazy’s model renders the seat in animal kinds crafted solely in leather-based. 15 animals are featured on the Milan present, and might be obtainable in varied designs: canine, panda, rabbit, chook, snake, ladybug, rooster, dinosaur, otter, elephant, cat, fox, bear, horse, and whale.
Set design has change into essential to trend’s world-building—or so it appears for Blazy. For the SS23 present, Bottega Veneta tapped the famend late Italian furnishings designer Gaetano Pesce to create a slick of swirling resin to coat the flooring. 4 hundred distinctive Pesce-designed chairs had been readied for showgoers to perch on earlier than they had been later bought in batches for the 12 months to return. This began an ongoing chair collaboration collection for the model. Throughout the winter 2024 present, Blazy featured variations of Le Corbusier’s iconic LC14 Tabouret Cabanon seat. However with the most recent assortment, Blazy explicitly asks: why ought to we put away infantile issues?
The chairs don’t at all times appear to match up with the garments on the runway. When Kate Moss wore a white t-shirt and denims made solely out of leather-based for the model’s SS23 present, the assertion didn’t essentially go hand in hand with the Come Stai? assortment’s lacquered smiley face vernacular. However pondering exterior the field, which frequently requires a little bit of psychological unbuttoning, can result in one of the best concepts round type and craft. For this reason The Ark suits into the identical world as Pesce’s resin flooring, and Kate Moss in not-denim denim. It’s all a bit whimsical, and totally different, and a pure a part of Blazy’s distinctive universe.
Restricted portions of The Ark might be obtainable on the Bottega Veneta web site on Sunday, September 22. Following via with the biblical reference, there might be simply two of every animal. The Ark will subsequent be obtainable at Design Miami in December, the place the sunshine grey rabbit and white rooster might be bought solely. Over the subsequent six months, the gathering will proceed to be bought in small numbers.
