22 September 2024 |
Seating guests on The Ark, an imaginative 60-piece offering of animal beanbag chairs (that you can buy) inspired by the iconic Sacco chair, but cut with a kindergarten edge, Bottega Veneta SS25 tapped into the power of childhood wonder. Creative director Matthieu Blazy wanted to feel the “primal pull of fashion” and what he called “the power of wow” this season, and so he served up a coming-of-age collection steeped in experimentation and marked by a sense of playfulness – hence the childlike chairs.
Stepping out to the serene sounds of rainfall blended with a string sonata, models donned oversized tailoring and asymmetric eveningwear, displaying a sort of “chic awkwardness”, as Blazy called it. Looks were misproportioned, like a kid playing dress up in the parent’s closet, with individual pieces appearing slashed, crinkled and messy. Elsewhere, there were liquidy leather dresses, grungy, ‘90s style flannel shirts or classic shirts with matchstick lapels, slouchy trousers and shimmering pompom-esque headpieces. Grocery bags, T-shirts and accessories were peppered with animal motifs, including the lucky bunny, and the frog, pouncing and pinned throughout as a symbol of transformation. Bags played with the idea of the doll house and the Andiamo appeared in a top-handle iteration.
As the soundtrack transformed into a recording of a transatlantic man reporting on an ascension to outer space and eventually, string-filled EDM, a collection of off-kilter characters came into focus. The Italian industrialist; the businessman dropping his daughter at school; the teenager; the chic Milanese at supermarket; children wearing their parents’ suits. It left onlookers with one, omnipresent question: “What would the kid in you want?”
Photography courtesy of Bottega Veneta.
