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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe runway opened with tailoring that carried the presence of sculpture. Jackets were designed with shoulders slightly more rounded than last season\u2019s, a subtle response to the feedback she received after her debut. Trousers were roomy and built for movement, or sometimes replaced by wrap skirts suspended from sturdy leather belts. Trotter admitted the skirt idea came from bag construction, the way leather is folded, pulled, and structured to create strength. It was Bottega Veneta thinking at its most instinctive: here, clothing is never separated from leatherwork. And soon, the show\u2019s focus shifted from structure to surface, from form to touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If Trotter\u2019s first collection for Bottega Veneta paid homage to Intrecciato, the house\u2019s signature leather weave, her second turned toward what she called \u201chairy textures.\u201d The runway gradually became a laboratory of materials. The peacoat returned, but now rendered in matte crocodile. Some appeared in Intrecciato with furry fringe sprouting from the weave. Others looked like astrakhan, only to reveal themselves as velvet carved to mimic fur. Many viewers found themselves playing a guessing game, because what you saw often wasn\u2019t what it was. Silk threads were engineered to ripple like shearling; real shearling was brushed to resemble fox; and recycled fiberglass, a standout in her first outing, returned in bubblegum pink, grazing the ankles. It was an experiment between nature and invention, and a demonstration of the artisans\u2019 capabilities at the heart of this house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trotter spoke of her atelier with unmistakable seriousness: \u201cI work with the most incredible artisans, and the pursuit of craft is central to everything that we do.\u201d The range of textures on the runway felt almost excessive, spilling beyond what the eye could catalog. One enveloping coat had a bristled surface that resembled thousands of blown-out matchsticks. A leather trench appeared tightly ridged, like licorice. From neatly shorn and polished to wildly unkempt, even Chewbacca-level unruliness, every register of \u201chairiness\u201d was explored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet amid the spectacle of materials, the most intriguing question was silhouette. While Demna, her fellow Kering creative, has recently stepped away from oversized proportions at Gucci, moving toward shrunken, clinging shapes, Trotter chose the opposite direction. She continues to amplify volume: jackets lengthened, shoulders broadened, sleeves filled out. Some were engineered to flare open like petals, revealing short skirts or mannish trousers beneath. When a reporter asked whether these clothes might \u201cswallow\u201d women, Trotter replied directly: \u201cWe spent a lot of time and care to have structure and form and curve without the heaviness. I was very attentive to that this season.\u201d She insisted many pieces were light as a feather, even if, visually, the eye sometimes read them as weighty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The show was also styled with theatrical cues. Nearly every look came with a hat: some simple knit beanies, others jaunty fringed caps that recalled Franco Zeffirelli\u2019s 1968 Romeo & Juliet<\/em>. Tunic-length dresses were worn bare-legged or with sturdy leggings, creating a romance laced with rawness. And it didn\u2019t feel incidental that the venue sat only steps from La Scala. When asked about references, Trotter name-checked Maria Callas and Pier Paolo Pasolini, the operatic diva and the brutal poet of cinema, two cultural poles of Italy: elegance and intensity, beauty and bite. The collection lived in that same tension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even so, within the density of detail, the show offered a moment of striking restraint: an asymmetrical black-and-white fringed skirt spiraling down the legs, topped with a simple knit tank. It suggested that sometimes, luxury is achieved not through accumulation, but through reduction, doing more with less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the menswear side, the collection felt more balanced. Tailoring was relaxed yet still slender. There were plush peacoats, vaguely military sweaters with leather shoulder patches, and a gently padded leather officer\u2019s coat that looked like it cost a million bucks. The clothes carried a confidence that made the menswear feel like it had a clearer future, perhaps a direction Bottega Veneta could explore further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, craftsmanship at this level is never cheap. Trotter revealed that one curly shearling swing coat was composed of more than 2,000 shearling elements. But that still might not be what ultimately fuels the brand. In Bottega Veneta\u2019s world, accessories drive sales, and that reality gives ready-to-wear an unusual freedom: it can be fantasy. Fashion here doesn\u2019t always need to be \u201cpractical.\u201d It can be a stage for craft, indulgence, and dream-making. In that sense, this collection read like a poem about Milan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A brutalist room flooded with deep red carpeting. Eighty models moving at near-storm speed. Surfaces catching light, bouncing, flicking, fluttering, turning texture into motion. Together, it created a portrait of a city with two faces: one hard, one soft; one severe, one seductive. Perhaps that is the best way to describe Milan. And perhaps it is also the clearest description yet of Bottega Veneta in the era of Louise Trotter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reported by Manit Maneephantakun In a season when Milan is crowded with questions about \u201cbrand identity,\u201d Bottega Veneta answered in a language that didn\u2019t need to shout. This was not a rebrand, not a sudden swerve, but a reaffirmation of what this house has always believed: that craftsmanship can become the language of luxury. Louise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":16906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[310],"class_list":["post-16905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fashion","tag-bottega-veneta"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/hashtaglegend.com\/th-th\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/PKai-bv-review-02-1024x640.jpg\")
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