How to restart a fashion house

Every once in a while, a designer puts on a show so amazingly good that everything pales in comparison. That’s Matteo Blazzi’s second stint at Bottega Veneta, the €1.5 billion leather goods brand he took over after former boss Daniel Lee left last year.

This season, Blazzi joined forces with 82-year-old Italian architect Gaetano Pesce, who conceived the stage’s colorful resin floor, as well as hundreds of bright, restrained resin chairs lined up for guests. “The idea was to really represent. [human] Difference. . . Different characters, and put them in the Gaetano landscape,” Blazzi said.

What he presented was a complete wardrobe, all of which were seen on the models in their early youth, and it was all the more interesting for him. The wardrobe began with what Blazy calls “twisted banality”: tees and faded shirts with chinos and baggy jeans made from leather, not cotton and wool, each layered with eight to 12 prints to create depth, then slimmed down, Blazy. he said. They have succeeded in smart clothing for professional life: pants with single-breasted suits that are swept back and sewn in a soft arch on the back of the calf if it is caught in the air; Impeccably tailored boat dresses and gowns that bulged at the waist; And, for evening, a patterned and fringed knit skirt and pants suit inspired by the Futurist painter Giacomo Bala.

The clothes were not only great-looking and wearable, but also strategic, Blazzi said, adding that the USPS of the Kering-owned brand is “a bag company” that connects its leather art and heritage to travel. And the idea of ​​”going somewhere”. Hence those pleated back pants and the ruffle of hem on the shoulders, skirts and trouser hems. Any of these garments can be identified by Bottega on the shop floor, no logo required.

His presentation provided a lesson for designers making their debuts at other labels in Milan this week. Expectations were high at Ferragamo, the 95-year-old Florentine shoemaker now run by former Burberry executive Marco Gobbetti and Maximilian Davies, a 27-year-old from Manchester who is the first black designer to hold the creative director post. at home.

In recent years, family-run Ferragamo has lost market share to larger rivals, becoming a small fish in an increasingly large pond and turning it around will be no easy task. Last year sales were €1.14bn, still shy of pre-pandemic levels.

The family urged Davis to be “as dangerous as possible”, he said in the background, and the show was a big first time fizz, with a palace for the set, its floors and walls orange-red, and Ferragamo’s new, all-caps, ever-so-small -seriffed Peter Saville-designed logo is blown across the entrance.

By hiring such a young designer, the Ferragamo family is hoping to attract a younger customer, but Davis is prepared for a range. There were brocade tops and short skirts, sure, but the emphasis was on the dress and the sleek, jet-set sportswear, complete with Michael Kors and Tom Ford. The slim, backless suede dresses were more vibrant and energetic than what came before Davis, but they didn’t impress. And Ferragamo should be happy to cut through the noise of its much bigger and better funded rivals.

New Missoni designer Filippo Grazioli, who worked under Riccardo Tisci at both Burberry and Givenchy, was sure to please. His first collection was short, plain and flashy, but the flat chevron and zebra-patterned bodycon dresses and miniskirts did little to demonstrate the house’s rich savoir-faire.

For his first Etro show, Marco De Vincenzo, who designed accessories for Fendi, did not keep the label’s signature but expanded the logo to embroider it on the pockets of embroidered shirts, the corners of skirts and the sides of carpet bags. Raised from last season’s cloth. The problem with that approach is that Etro doesn’t have enough brand equity to make the logo widely desirable—De Vincenzo has work to do to get there.

Today, it seems that just being a leather goods brand is not enough – it has successfully moved into luxury fashion houses such as Louis Vuitton and Hermès, who sell more handbags than certain handbag brands and more shoes than shoemakers. And so Swiss leather goods label Bali is trying its hand again, hiring Los Angeles-based designer Rhuigi Villaseñor to put together its first runway collection in 21 years. His slouchy suits and slim-cut dresses look right at home in LA, but they haven’t helped establish a clear identity for the brand.

Versace and Dolce & Gabbana both relied on celebrity power and the fashion of the 90s and early aughts this season. Donatella Versace featured OG influencer Paris Hilton in vampiric black cowhide dresses, purple skirts and dark eyeliner. Dolce & Gabbana collaborated with Kim Kardashian, who called it “healing” and not in collaboration: she chose archive pieces from 1987 to 2007, the designers reworked them in a simple way, the label with the year of their original creation was sewn on the clothes. Corsets and elasticated skirts, silky cargo pants and head-to-toe leopard print – all of which Kardashian could wear. She took a bow with the designers in a beautiful jet evening gown as her mother and three children watched from the front row.

It was smart marketing and light-hearted fun in a week overshadowed by the national election. Italians head to the polls on the program’s final Sunday, quietly worrying many in Italy’s fashion industry who are expected to vote for the far-right coalition. Armani’s closing show offered another break, with lightweight trousers, embroidered jackets and shimmering evening gowns in soft, pale tones. After a week of so many Gen Z-centric shows, it was nice to see a costume for adults.

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