Kitty Grady reports from the highly anticipated—and cinema-studded—first Bottega Veneta collection from Louise Trotter in Milan.
There’s nothing like a fashion designer debut to drum up a sense of anticipation. And the particular anticipation for Louise Trotter’s first Bottega Veneta show in Milan this season felt almost woven—or should I say intrecciato—throughout the city. As well as posters plastered around the fashion capital, Milan’s iconic tramcars which zigzag around the centre were wallpapered with ad campaigns featuring the brand’s latest muses, as well as the woven leather motif itself.
Invitees to the show, meanwhile, were met with another woven creation. Featuring a new logo from the house, the invitation, was a flat oval structure made from black leather that concertina-ed out to create a net-like bag. Knowing how seriously covetable Bottega leather goods are—it’s hard to imagine an invite with more cachet (or bounce).
A Rabbit’s Foot were there for it. Whilst it might seem counterintuitive for a film-focused magazine to cover a fashion show, for Bottega it makes a lot of sense. The house, in its latest era—Louise Trotter, a British designer formerly at Lacoste and Carven, was announced as a creative director in December 2024—has seen its muses include a litany of film people, from actresses Julianne Moore and Vicky Krieps to more surprising appearances from the likes of Suspiria director Dario Argento.
During fashion week, Milan feels like a village. The night before the show, our Creative Director Fatima Khan, Managing Editor Anna Pierce and I rendez-vous for dinner at Ristorante Nuova Arena, a delightful trattoria with pink walls and an excellent crème caramel in the Borgo degli Ortolani neighbourhood. Fatima recalled seeing Michelle Lamy the day before as well as throngs of K-pop fans outside her hotel and jokes that her new code word for a big dog is “giraffe”. It isn’t long before we spotted a few more “giraffes” in this supposedly under-the-radar restaurant. Former French Vogue Editor-in-chief Emmanuelle Alt was nestled in a back corner; Honey Dijon (due to perform at the Bottega afterparty a day later) took her place at the front.
Anna and I are staying in the less glamorous, but nonetheless fashion-centric district of Largo Isarco. Just beyond the city boundaries, it is also where the famous Fondazione Prada is located. Mrs. Prada’s show was presented on Thursday, whilst Versace (where Dario Vitale’s made his debut) on Friday.
Taking place on Saturday, the Bottega Veneta show certainly feels like the MFW finale (with the only major event to follow it being the Giorgio Armani show the day after). Bottega takes place at an old warehouse in the same neighbourhood we are staying. The industrial setting—while perhaps hard to avoid in a place like Milan—is nonetheless intentional. “I like that [a] ‘Bottega’ is a workshop — one with a long and multifaceted history in Italy… It’s where the hand and heart become one,” said Trotter in the introduction to her show notes.
The quiet street the show is located along was itself transformed into a runway of fans—and nothing quite prepared us for the sheer pandemonium on BTS boyband star RM’s arrival—and it’s nice to spot the odd person using their invitation as a bag. Inside, the sound of violins warming up played as the Bottega staff put the finishing touches to the scenography, which included mopping the pristine white runway. In terms of decoration, what seemed like a blown-up and deconstructed version of the show’s invitation hung as a sculpture from the ceiling (alongside another pink one), whilst the seats were glass cubes, as satisfyingly colourful and opulent as boiled sweets.
The front row guest list was just as mouth-watering. Actresses in particular were out in full force, amongst them Julianne Moore, Uma Thurman (who was sat next to Anna Wintour), Michelle Yeoh, Valeria Golino, Shu Qi and Vicky Krieps. From television there was also a healthy presence by way of Adolescence’s young Emmy winner Owen Cooper, Elite’s Omar Ayuso and Severance’s Tramell Tillman.
A particular fan girl moment of mine included seeing Zadie Smith—in full Bottega look—stopping to hug filmmaker Mati Diop (she later stopped by to say hello to Jack Antonoff). Fatima meanwhile is particularly happy to say hello to Interview’s Mel Ottenberg. Yet our team’s most anticipated guest was undoubtedly Lauren Hutton (who, deeply charming, tells me she is a fan of A Rabbit’s Foot.) She of course starred alongside Richard Gere in the 1980 film American Gigolo. The film was of course styled by Giorgio Armani (Gere and Hutton sat next to each other the next day at his first posthumous show) and Bottega Veneta. Hutton arrived on the front row wearing the same intrecciato blood red clutch and green hat that she had worn in the film 45 years earlier. The ‘Lauren’ clutch is back this season.
At around 5.30pm, the show gets going. The collection—which sees menswear looks interlaced into the womenswear—is lyrical and lovely, with serious clothes that still contain a free-spirit. And, as hinted with the invitation, bounce was key. Tassels and fringing everywhere. The Muppets appear as an unlikely reference by way of iridescent fringed coats and skirts that make models seem to ricochet, rather than walk, down the runway (no pictures or videos I’ve seen do justice to the beauty of their movement IRL). The colour combinations—like the seats—are particularly pleasing. Buttery yellows; minty and mossy greens; light pinks teamed with bright pinks; wonderful greys. Accessories stole the show, from collars to the clogs—in a variety of colours—which are bound to fly off the shelves. The ‘Veneto’—Trotter’s key new bag—is made from an oversize intrecciato and is designed to be held snugly under the arm. But in the meantime, Trotter proved that a newspaper—which models also held—can also serve as a smart accessory.
In a fashion industry that is saturated by male creative directors, it was refreshing to see collection from a woman, and the only woman to secure an appointment in the recent carousel of designer change-ups. “I’m in the candy box,” Trotter told reporters backstage. The show notes referred to Laura Braggion, Bottega’s first female creative lead at the house from the 1980s to the 2000s. The collection was certainly imbued with a female gaze. Trotter, who made me chuckle appreciatively when I read that she likes clothes that make her feel like “she’s staying in bed”, styled her SS26 models with a sleepy insouciance: with sleeves and straps falling off shoulders onto bare arms.
The warming up strings we heard on arrival transformed into a show soundtrack created by filmmaker Steve McQueen. Entitled 66-76 it was described as an “audio artwork” which, in the spirit of interwoven-ness, involved McQueen revisiting two recordings of Wild Is the Wing—by Nina Simone and David Bowie respectively—to create a ‘duet’. “You hear those beautiful voices interlocking, it’s putting things which are complementary but different together to make something brand new,” McQueen noted.
“People leave fashion shows like a crime scene,” Fatima had said to me the day before. And while this is partly true for Louise Trotter’s first collection at Bottega—in her curtain call Trotter herself dashed on and off, red clutch in hand—people did stay and linger a while. Conversations were had, there was laughter and buzz beneath the hanging sculptures. A sense of interwovenness, if you will, remained.
